Southwick

WHY WHY WHY does a guy like "Calimero" Marc de Reuver say things like “Hopefully I can make the podium in Southwick. Or is that aiming too high, I’m not really sure? At least I get the impression that apart from ‘Superman’ James Stewart I can beat any American in the sand."

Okay, the odds of doing that are ridiculous. First, de Reuver did poorly the last time he was here. Second, if you're basing your expectations on watching the race on tape or looking at photos, you're way off again because Southwick doesn't ride like it looks. Is it a sand track? Yes. Is it like the sand that de Reuver races on in Holland? No. Plus, there are a million different elements that video tape can't explain, like getting jet lag (which got the best of him when he tried this race in 2001) or dealing with heat and humidity (which got him this time).

It wasn't nearly as hot and humid as it was expected to be at Southwick in August, and yet the heat and the pace and the intensity got to de Reuver. For four laps in the first moto, the guy was insane fast, and he well and truly blew the doors off of Tim Ferry coming through the pack. But in the second moto, he wasn't the same. Once Matt Georke started pulling him, you knew he was in trouble. I mean, when you say you can beat any American in the sand besides James Stewart, and you're in seventh and freaking Matt "Beef" Georke is pulling away from you, you're going to look bad. Then de Reuver crashed and that was it. Now, the man was super crazy fast for a few laps. He obviously can ride. Plus he was really cool and fun and funny. But, that doesn't take away from what he said. Just say things like "I'm not sure what's going to happen, it's totally different so I don't know." Otherwise you create a battle that doesn't need to happen, and then you lose.

Instead de Reuver created a battle that didn't need to happen, and he lost.

16 Year Old Adults

Oh sure, Shawn Johnson is talented and cute and Nastia Liukin is focused and elegant. We heard it over and over for the last two weeks, and for the moment, these girls are America's little darlings. As such, they were thrust into the spotlight, with appearances live on set with Bob Costas, or appearances on the Today Show. You feel like you get to know someone really well in such a very short span, and then you realize you've never heard their voice before.

When the girls did get their turn to talk, they looked way more nervous than they did when they were performing. But no one would blame them. After all, these girls are 16 and 18 years old, and they've never been in this situation before. They're just kids. They're high school aged, they haven't even gone to college yet. And with this Jason Lawrence business this summer, hasn't everyone weighed in with their "Hey, I remember when I was a kid I did a lot of dumb stuff too..."

But here's the funny part about motocross. We don't have 16 year old kids. We don't have cute darlings. We don't have people who are just of high school age, or who haven't even entered college. By the time a motocross rider at the same level of Shawn Johnson or Nastia Liukin shows up, he's expected to be a man, to be mature, to be a pro and to not be a kid. We don't have 16-year-old kids in this sport. We have 16-year-old adults.

I'm sure when the nation saw Johnson nervously squeezing her medals on Tuesday night, they thought it was cute that she was that nervous. After all, she's just a kid!

In motocross, you're mature way beyond that. Motocross riders have been interviewed a billion times by the time they turn 20. Trey Canard and Jimmy Albertson came on our webcast this weekend and it seemed like it was old hat to them.

Sure, our webcast reaches about a zillionth of the audience the Today Show does, but that shouldn't dismiss how impressively well spoken today's teenaged motocross star is.

As always, we have a tendency to forget just how young our athletes really are. The new champion of the AMA Motocross Class, the one who had to get beaten down for three years by the Greatest Of All-Time, would have spent this summer in NFL Rookie Camp if he played football. For us, he's expected to carry the sport on his shoulders and into the masses. That's as impressive as anything he can do on the track, or Johnson can do on a balance beam.

Colorado

Clearly, it was a night race.
Carl Stone photo

Every Monday I roll back into the Racer X office to be greeted with “So how was it?” It was especially important on this Monday, because this was the first night race, and, everyone had watched the stuff on TV. So how was it live? The concept was great, but they needed more lights. It was the opposite of what I thought would happen. David Clabaugh, who runs the event, always puts together first-rate stuff. In fact, there simply wouldn’t be a national in Colorado at all if it wasn’t for him, so the guy knows what he’s doing. Based on that, I expected the lights to be perfect, and I didn’t think it would be an issue at all. But even David didn’t nail it this first time. As soon as we arrived at the track on Friday morning and saw how sparse the spacing of the lights was, I knew we had a story. Things improved throughout the weekend, as a dozen light poles were trucked in from around the facility. It helped, but no one said “it was perfect.” But if you give Clabaugh another shot, I bet he’ll have it dialed.

On the other hand, I was really impressed with the atmosphere for the fans. The race had the feel of a summer concert or festival. There looked to be way more fans than previous races in Colorado, and many noted that those fans weren’t all wearing motocross swag. A few vendors told me fans were asking very basic questions, such as who was racing in what class. That means these were newbies who don’t follow every round. We could always use converts like that.

One other side effect/affect of the night race was track prep. The idea was to not disc the track up as deep as usual because big bumps and ruts would lead to big shadows. I talked to Villopoto about that on Saturday morning, and he said “The lights will be okay as long as it doesn’t get rough.” So they didn’t let it get rough. This also meant a challenge for watering the track, because A) you can’t water as much when a track isn’t as deep and B) water doesn’t dry up when there isn’t any sun on it and C) moist dirt is darker than dry dirt. So it was all a little experimental, and as far as I could tell, we had a track that was smooth and slippery. And there was even some dust kicking up in the last moto, something that hasn’t been seen at a national in decades. Hey, the only way to try to dial this race in was to run it in the first place.

The savior for all of this was the 2003 edition of James Stewart, who was in action again. Not only did Bubba wax everyone as usual, but he kept the fans on his side with every word he said. In his Monday Conversation with Steve Cox, he summed it up well: “I think, for a night race, it was all cool. I think, like I said in the press conference, it’s good for the sport. I think you can be negative about it, and you can say a lot of things, but I bet more people tuned in, and I bet more showed up here tonight than they normally would’ve if it was a hot summer day.”

After Stewart said good things in the press conference, Kevin Kelly turned to me and said “he’s just putting the sport up on his back right there.”

And hey, Stewart got engaged last weekend? Somewhere, someone told these racers that being married is where it’s at. At the press conference, you had 22-year-old Stewart (now engaged), 20-year old Davi Millsaps (now engaged) and 20-year-old Mike Alessi (who is no engaged, but dad always refers to girlfriend Dani as “my future daughter-in-law). I’d like the meet the trainer/coach/agent/parent/manager that started giving everyone the marrying advice. Can it really be a coincidence? It’s probably the same guy who said “Don’t ever tell the media anything about your bike or training program, ever.”

Brett Metcalfe’s mechanic received the first-ever ejection from the pro pits that I’ve ever seen. In the first Lites moto, the riders were riding over the track markers and nearly hitting the mechanic’s area. The AMA threw a hay bale down there to stop the riders, but Metcalfe’s wrench, Kyle Bentley, grabbed the haybale and threw it back over the side of the track. Then the AMA’s Jay Mitrowitz came over to argue, and the next thing you know, he gives Kyle the “You’re outta here!!!” Kyle should have kicked some dirt on Jay’s shoes at the very least. Man, the comedy potential of that whole scenario is through the roof. What if Kyle had bumped Jay stomach to stomach? Should the other Pro Circuit team members have come over to get between them and protect their guy? What was Metcalfe’s reaction when he came around and his mechanic was gone? Kevin Kelly gave me the funniest visual, imagining a full bench-clearing brawl, where other mechanics come sprinting out of the pits and into the mechanic’s area to join in the melee.

Something was in the air in Colorado (besides less oxygen and sunlight). We had the mechanic ejection, we had Josh Grant and Ryan Villopoto slamming each other in practice and nearly fighting, and we had the ongoing J-Law and Dungey battle. When the races for the win are the same each week, we need rivalries more and more. Be it mechanic’s versus the AMA, or riders versus each other, I’m all for it.

High Point 3

Two theories always collide in this sport:

Theory 1: This sport grew based on the dominance of McGrath/Carmichael

Theory 2: To really grow, this sport needs competition and multiple winners.

How completely polar opposite can those theories be? We all say the sport needs good racing, but in reality we say it because that's what we want. Good racing solves all problems. Weekends are fun when there's a battle, and they're not as fun when there isn't. Everything else is just background. I always feel bad for people I know in this industry who work so hard to make better events, but all they can do is make 10% of the event better. Great racing is 90% of what people talk about.

And this High Point National didn't off up many action-packed battles. The facility looked awesome, the track drew raves, and I know our crew worked hard to make it happen. But Stewart and Villo OWN it right now on the track. The only highlight of the afternoon was either A) Matt Ware getting stuck in the mud (see below) or B) Ryan Dungey going OFF on J-Law in the press conference (See Racer X Motocross Show). Otherwise you just knew Stewart and Villo would take off, and they did.

But....is that really bad? We spend a lot of time and effort generating local press for this event. The local TV stations came out, the local newspaper wrote about the event, and the local radio station hung out all day on Saturday. And you know what's good? You can make any local reporter or fan an expert just by saying "You want to watch #1 and #7." On Saturday, I had to do some of the interviews with the radio station, and the DJ they had there running the show knew NOTHING about motocross. But he was an expert, instantly, by just saying "We've gone from the Carmichael era to the Stewart era." How long did it take for him to memorize that? 15 seconds? And then when the fans came to see the show the next day, that's exactly what they saw, the Stewart era.

So our sport is accesable to the casual (read: new) fan this way.

But....is that good?

After wrapping up another great day bench-racing with David Bailey, DB said "People love watching Stewart ride. TV needs to show that. Show Kobe. Show Tiger. Show James."

Good point...but. Here is why dominance looks better in basketball or golf than in motocross. When Kobe is on fire, he's hitting big shots with defenders all over him, and the game is still in doubt and he's making clutch shots. It's exciting to watch. Stewart jumping a double while all alone out front is not the same as Kobe hitting a huge three with two defenders on him. Stewart may win by 50 seconds and Kobe may score 50 points, but think about the difference in the excitement in watching those two accomplishments.

As for Tiger, all golfers are out there by themselves, so you can't compare. If motocross was all time trails, and everyone rode the track alone and did lap times, James would be like Tiger. But when there are 40 other guys and he runs away, well that's not the same.

What's my point? Still not sure, and I'm not sure anyone else is sure, either. We need dominance but yet we don't. Dominance is boring to the masses but makes it easy for the masses to follow the sport. Dominance is good and yet bad.

I don't know about these theories. What do you think?

Finally

Sorry, it was a busy week trying to cover a GNCC I didn't go to so I am only able to get to my stuff from Hangtown now.

And by the way, as far as GNCC is concerned, we finally have a battle on our hands as a gang of Anzacs (a Kiwi and two Aussies) swept the podium at the Kentucky race and David Knight crashed back to fifth. And Knight was getting heavy pressure when he crashed, so it's not like they got lucky.

Anyway, the 450 thumper has once again proven to be the great equalizer. A bunch of privateers are trying to become "this year's Gavin Gracyk" and they're turning heads. Tops of that list right now is Steve Boniface, who turned in two good rides at Glen Helen and then two even better rides at Hangtown. Boniface looked super fast and smooth in practice on Saturday and backed it up with two good starts and two inspired rides in the motos. French guy fought for every inch of the track, battled the injured Townley and Short, and ended up 5th overall. He basically has no ride and no support and is just hoping to get something somewhere. This weekend he'll be in France to try a GP and see if anything sticks there. The big difference between Boniface and Gracyk '07 is that Boniface is a known commodity. Gracyk's potential upside was the great unknown last year, but Boniface has been around and had his chances.

Sean Hamblin has, too. But like Boniface, he's got motivation again and he's riding as well as ever. His results don't show the true story, as Hamblin moved from midpack into the top ten in moto one only to stall and lose a half lap restarting. He got 15th. In moto two , he had bike problems on the starting line, did a quick fix, rode a few laps and had to pull into the pits, and then came out on fire and charged all the way back to 18th. If you can get top 20 with a pit stop, you're going fast. If Hamblin has two more good weekends and Josh Hill has two more bad ones, you're going to see fans picketing in front of the Yamaha semi to get Hamblin on a works bike.

Jeff Alessi is flying the privateer colors strong now, too. I was super nervous putting him on my fantasy team last weekend. Tony Alessi told me Jeff would be fast, but that's as reliable as source as going to Hillary's campaign chief to ask about her chances (he said last week she would win it all). Jeff came through in the first moto for seventh and would have done the same in moto two until his shoulder popped out. But he popped it back in to help salvage 15th place for the Weigandt Warriors team. I thanked Jeff for that when I saw him at the airport on Monday.

So what's the deal with Josh Hill? He's done with Ryno now because Ryno picked up Broc Hepler, and Hilly didn't want to share a trainer with another 450 guy. Since that all happened, Hepler got hurt, leaving Ryno with no one, and then Hill suddenly started busting the belt out of his pants again and mooning everyone during the motos. Is it possible to get that out of shape that quickly? Hylton from Parts Unlimited told me Thor got the wrong size pants for Hill, and Hill told me his belt broke. That makes sense, except for the fact that Hill pants were also coming down in just about every moto last year. I don't think motocross pants are capable of containing what must be the longest lower back in the sport today. Maybe they can just make a Thor onesie?

Anyway, I think Hill will get better. He rode better in Hangtown and sometimes the younger riders just need a few races to figure out the pressure and the pace and stuff when they move to the big class. A few years ago, Davi Millsaps moved up and sucked at Hangtown, and then battled Chad Reed for a podium the next weekend at High Point. I think Hill's breakthrough moto is coming.

Ivan Tedesco is coming around, too. IT goes fast because he rides aggressive, and I think it takes him awhile to get comfortable doing that. Last year he missed the first few outdoor rounds with a concussion, and when he returned at Budd's Creek, he was a shell of himself. A month later at Unadilla, he finally looked aggressive again. Same thing in supercross, he looked timid in the first few races this year and then suddenly found his aggression in San Francisco. Then he got hurt. He looked timid at Glen Helen, and considerably less so at Hangtown. I'm pumped for IT, he deserves a few good rides.

Ben Townley is hurt, but that guy has come back from way worse to go fast again. Even the knee injury that took him out of nearly the entire 2006 season wasn't the worst he's had to deal with, BT told me that when he first came to America to ride for KTM, he crashed testing for supercross and said he nearly died. He recovered and won a World Championship. Some guys know how to deal with pain and block out the fear once they're recovered. Ben's one of those guys.

A lot of riders in the Lites class left Glen Helen believing they could run with the "big five" of RV, Stroupe, Dungey, Metcalfe and Lawrence. Unfortunately, a bunch of them had the chance to prove they could at Hangtown, and they didn't. Trey Canard is obviously capable of getting in there, but I think it will be mid season before we see anyone else consistently finishing in front of those main five riders.

Jake Weimer had the most inconsistent supercross season ever, and rectified things by finishing seventh in the first three 0utdoor motos of the year. But he dropped to a dissapointing 10th in the fourth moto of the year. You know what that 7-10 made him overall? Seventh.

Are you coming to Texas (or just staying there and coming to the race?) We'll crank up the Racer X Motocross Show Presented by Toyota live in the Toyota Zone on Vendor's row at 11 a.m. on Saturday. Come on by and get yourself on camera. Toyota hooked me up with a sweet 1983 Corolla with 372,000 miles on the ticker so please show them some love. Car has vinyl seats and the brand people tell me it was garage kept with one owner. Must have been a smoking owner.

SoCal Testing is a Waste of Time

A friend of mine, who used to be a factory mechanic, who is from Canada, keeps telling me to write a blog about what a waste of time it is for teams to test in Southern California when exactly 1/12th of the nationals actually take place out there. This, of course, is obvious to him since he was a factory parts changer and actually knew what parts would get changed once the team hit a race back east.

I, however, am a journalist, and we know in this sport that such a title doesn't mean much. I have no clue what the teams test and improve on, and no one will ever tell me for fear it will get printed and let their competition get an advantage. Yeah, because Cliff White over at Honda is reading Blogandt for the latest set ups.

The last time I remember reading a real story with actual bike setup info was back in 1999, when Cycle News had some story on John Dowd's YZ250. They pointed out two huge Jeremy McGrath set-up secrets.

A) McGrath was a fanatic about his clutch, and once Dowd started using McGrath's clutch prep secrets, he started getting better starts.

B) McGrath liked his bike jetted rich, so he could hammer the throttle between jumps and out of corners, and the bike would have a small bit of hesitation and then clean out instead of launching him off of the track or lighting up the rear tire.

After that, the trail went cold. Surely whoever authorized that test in Cycle News ended up testing speaker wires with his tongue in the back of Yamaha's audio department. And wouldn't you know it that just two years later, Ricky Carmichael beat McGrath for the SX title, probably with a quick-adjust clutch perch and fat jetting!

It's been nine years since I've heard any other info, but surely teams are out at Glen Helen right now trying all kinds of "stuff" and "things" all of which, according to my ex-mechanic friend, won't even work once the series leaves California (after two races).

In that case, it will make it hard for a rider to perform poorly at Glen Helen next weekend and say "well, it's just the first race and this is a long series." After all, that's the only track where his bike will actually work well!

This is all according to my ex mechanic friend. Now, I'm going to ask him to comment to this post with some actual examples of actual parts actually working in SoCal and not working at the rest of the tracks.

Go ahead, Mr. Vegas.

Cycles Real News

I've mentioned this before: In motocross, no rider ever, ever, ever speaks bad about his equipment, because A) he would get killed by his sponsors and B) even if he managed to get the words out in public, he would be called a whiner. But in road racing, which at the MotoGP level is much, much more popular than motocross, where teams have much, much, much more money and time invested, it's okay to say what you want. Last year Valentino Rossi went crazy on Michelin to anyone that would listen. I was shocked at first, but the more I dove into the road race media scene, the more insider info I found. Cycle News printed a whole bunch about exactly why Nicky Hayden's Honda sucked--it was slow, it wasn't designed for a rider his size, etc. How did anyone with a tape recorder ever get someone at Honda to admit their bike had a slow top speed?

Cycle News is a great source for this stuff. On the road racing side, they print drama, intrigue and inside gossip like you wouldn't believe if you're raised on motocross. Can you even imagine a whole column saying "Motocross Racer ____ told us his bike has terrible brakes? Or Motocross Racer ____ told us the team needs to do some more work to get more power--his bike is slow." That ain't gonna' happen!

But Cycle News is trying. The first few issues this year had some pretty deep stuff on supercross and motocross, including how teams are not happy about the possibility of international races on the SX schedule, and Ray Blank from American Honda says he's having a hard time believing in the AMA's whole "races are up for bid" process. This week, NPG honcho John Ayers spoke his side on how the National Promoters Group (NPG) is hoping that they get a chance to prove just how effective an organization they can be this summer, providing they win the AMA bid and get the right to promote the AMA/Toyota Motocross Championships. I don't get too much of the inside information here, because with knowledge comes responsiblity, and I'm not very responsible. But I can tell you that what Ayers said is true. The NPG is under the AMA at the Nationals. Yes, they own the tracks, but most every move is dictated by what the AMA told them. I've been here since 2001, and I've seen the bosses here in my office spend many stressful nights knowing the the races are in the hands of the AMA--sometimes that's good, and sometimes it's bad. This latest up for bid deal is just another in a long line. For the most part it usually works out in the end. I know the people behind the NPG are capable of much more, and I know this because other things that run through this office (GNCC and Loretta's) run very, very smoothly, and with unquestioned success. I think a lot of the industry gets that, too.

I would like to think that all of these big deals are just growing pains for the sport. Whatever does happen, these are exciting times. AMA bids are coming in soon, no one really knows what the AMA wants or what they may decide--it's like the season-ending cliffhanger. And that goes not just for motocross, but for superbike, dirt track and the rest. All of these series may look way different soon, and hopefully way better. Will it have a major impact on the racing on the track? Probably not. But people still like reading about this stuff anyway, because we're all just big fans of the sport, and we all want things to get bigger and better for everyone involved--and bigger and better requires changes. For example, I guarantee you no matter who gets to promote the Nationals in the future, there will be high-speed internet access at the track. That's good for everyone...unless you make Michelin tires for Valentino Rossi. Then you just wish everyone would shut up.

Say It Ain't Not There

I was afraid of this. I was so scared of it. Over a month ago the AMA/Toyota Motocross Championships wrapped up at Glen Helen. It was an awesome race and event that capped an awesome season. A week after the race took place, it aired on Speed. By then, I was knee deep in GNCC stuff, so I never fired up the DVR to watch the TV coverage. I had watched the previous 11 rounds faithfully, exchanging barbs with this summer's roomate, GNCC and Loretta Lynn's Scoring Master Mind Tim Boryk, which was kept a nice run going from last season, when Andy Bowyer was living here at the Weege house.

Late in the season a format change was made on the TV shows. The first motos were showed as highlights and the second moto was shown in its entirety, as if it was a main event. I will just, um, not say anything about that, because we all know the second moto is not a main event and the first moto counts the same so if you show it any other way it would really just be more confusing for those that don't know that. But this, we already know.

Glen Helen threw a bigger curve ball. At Glen Helen, the whole season was decided in the first moto. The whole darned season. Everything. It was all on the line right there, and the first moto of the Motocross Class essentially gave everyone a chance to win the title at certain moments, but when it counted Grant Langston stepped up and found something no one else could match. It was such good drama, such excitement, such potential for riveting TV.

Langston was in sixth at one point, and it looked like the moto and the title could be anyone's: Ferry, Short, Alessi.... but then Langston got going. Got around Ferry when Timmy tipped over. Got around Windham when he fell. Made an unreal pass on Short which essentially sapped the fight right from Andrew--just ruined him like a guy getting burned bad on a huge pass play. Scratch Ferry and Short from the title chase. Then Langston ran down Alessi in a gutty, gritty effort that essentially won the title for him. Those moments--pressuring Ferry into a crash, passing Short and passing Alessi--won the championship for Langston. And how did Speed cover this once-in-a-decade dramatic battle for the AMA Motocross Championship? They showed the highlights real quick, showed Langston passing Short without even replaying it, (and no one explained how big that move was, no one mentioned that if Short had won the moto while Langston was floundering in the back he would have taken the points lead, but instead Langston turned it all around). Ferry was never seen at all. And on it went, missing one dramatic moment after another. But the boring second moto, when Langston already had the title and the overall pretty much sewn up and nothing was on the line, that was shown in its entirety.

So in the boringness, Sheheen was left to do nothing but repeat 17 times "and with this kind of momentum, Langston could really be a contender for the supercross title next season against James Stewart." Hey, you know what, that's a nice story for next year, but this is THIS YEAR and this was one of the best championship chases ever, so why would you not mention that drama and celebrate it? Oh wait, that's right. It's because the good stuff happened in the first moto and it wasn't shown.

What's a better point to have to repeat to fans? How we could have something cool happen in a few months, or that we have something really cool happening RIGHT NOW?

I know there are probably a million things going on behind the scenes that make these decisions become reality. Perhaps someone at Speed who knows nothing of the individual situation of the race instructed the producers to show it that way. And poor Jeff Emig. The man tries so hard each week to put the show up on his shoulders and add some drama when the footage does not. I'm sure there are reasons for what we are seeing. But it's too bad because what we didn't see was so much better.