2010 Teams Thoughts or Opinions

jhn145 at mxinsiders.com posted a good thread on the upcoming season. This is what I replied.

Great subject John. I think that the upcoming season is a very important one because it can be the beginning of serious changes in the landscape of US supercross. We are seeing bigger, stronger, factory-support teams with potential Top 7 riders (IT at Valli, Reardon at MotoConcept, Hahn and Moss at Motosport, Hill along JS7 at L&M and the duelists at JGR, GL8 at JLR). Is this the last year that Honda and Kawasaki will be factory-run teams? maybe not, if the title sponsors have enough $$, like the Fiat Yamaha and Repsol Honda teams of MotoGP, some factories will still be able to run their own structures.

It's hard to bet against the trio of Stewart, Reed and still somehow, RV, but behind the horde is hungry, will be very aggressive and in contract year motivation for some (the Honda boyz). I believe that, as much as JS7, CR22 and RV2 are strong and solid, anything can happen (as we've seen in the frantic 2009 SX series) and the Outsiders, the mega pack of outsiders, can do anything and surely score podium spots.

I can see DM18, Shorty, Ryan Dungey, Hill, Reardon, Moss, Hahn, IT, Josh Grant and JB114 play hard and race good.

DM is motivated, he is feeling good right now and seem to be happy with the 2010 450. Short for sure will be on it. IT has "revenge" tattooed on his knuckles. Dungey The Rookie will be on the gas on the 450, as he showed it in '08. all are strong racers, all can jump on any opportunity given by RV, JS and CR. This season, it's all going to be about the starts because lots of those guys are hard to pass and won't let any door open too long.

Is RV overrated right now, or is the hype justified? Is he back to his top form, is he 100% able to tackle James Stewart and Chad? is he good with the 450?

The season is looking good (although we've said that a lot, every December)
:)

Main Event

It's on!
Hansen, Millsaps JS RV all lined up next to each others.
Bubba holeshot, Hansen, Blose down in first lap

Reardon in 2, Goerke 3rd after 2 laps

Byrne and #54 collide lap 3


Lap 5: JS, DR, Goerke, DM, Craig, RV

Millsaps on a roll, passed Goerke, Christian Craig loses front end, RV now in 5

Crap, lap 9 RV's bike is down, mechanical (bent shifter). He was flying though the whoops though, too bad

Davi passes Reardon for 2nd in the exit of the whoops. Craig is in 5th. Hansen looks good and fast, just got bars tangle at the start.

Bubba wins, DM a strong second, DR122, Goerke and great for Craig in 5th

Friday Night Open Class Results
1. James Stewart, Yamaha
2. Davi Millsaps, Honda
3. Dan Reardon, Honda
4. Matt Georke, Yamaha
5. Christian Craig, Yamaha
6. Cole Siebler, Honda
7. Tyler Bowers, Yamaha
8. Nick Wey, Yamaha
9. Chris Blose, Honda
10. Michael Byrne, Suzuki

Photo is too far but this is RV, DM and Hansen talking about the track. It's mechanic wheel-change challenge right now.
DM's dude wins, Berlutti second, Reardon's wrench 3rd on a photo finish with Oscar on the #1.
this was one of the most fun race tonight

It's all about Rockstar

Isn't it

US Open Friday - 1st semi on the grid

Blose took the lead over Wey quickly, Voss finished 3rd

85cc race

The 'next Carmichael', young Adam Cianciarulo wins, jumped the big double all race long. Fun to watch. Jessie Masterpool and Chris Alldredge make the podium, Aldridge look very smooth and more consistent in his laps.

Friday Night Alpinestars 85cc Mini Invitational
1. Adam Cianciarulo, Kawasaki
2. Chris Alldredge, Yamaha
3. Jesse Masterpool, Suzuki
4. Keith Tucker, Yamaha
5. Thomas Covington, Kawasaki

Heat 3 Friday

After a half-lap battle with Hansen Bubba is gone, half a mile lead.
Hansen then Byrne then Boni then Partridge.
Big race between those 3.

Final results on that order

Heat 2 Friday

After battling a couple laps, DM wins ahead of Reardon, then Siebler then 57.

First part of the night

The one on one was fun, Bubba beat Hahn, RV beat DM.
1st heat is on, RV cleaning it, far ahead of Bowers

US Open is on

Opening ceremonies

US Open of SX 09 - Friday practice

It's good to see some racing again even if the US Open is not looking close to what it was. The pits are small, there are much fewer semis and top 10 riders than ever (as many are here but without a ride like Chad Reed, Josh Hill or IT).
The track is extremely disappointing and I would say shitty compared to previous years. It looks easier than the usual Arenacross tracks, but of course James Stewart is way above the rest (including RV2 and DM18). James managed to make the track technical by jumping combos that only him could create. On the last practice he shaved his best time by 1 second, in the last lap when all other riders had already left the track. I hope for those guys their team filmed JS7.
DM is there, strong as well as RV and a looking-good Will Hahn, Dan Reardon has speed too.

A side note to welcome Ezra Yogi Lusk (#11) to racing. He's still way off the Top 5 but looks good for a guy coming back from 5 or 6 years of retirement.

Lots of crashes and gnarly riding in the 85cc practice. Adam "the future of US motocross" Ciancarulo is here but needs to tame it a little bit if he wants to stay on 2 wheels. Only one of the kids jumped the finish line double and it looked sketchy the 2 times he tried.

Here's some easy shots from this afternoon.

New 2009 AMA National Motocross Champ

Congrats to Chad Reed for clinching the title at Budds Creek today. From the beginning, I never doubted that he would win this title. Come on people, who wouldn't believe he could: he's Chad Reed! One of the 3 fastest guys on Earth on a dirt bike, one of the 2 most trained, fittest (unless illness as we saw) guy in the world.

Carmichael RedBud Two-Stroke Video

Check this very cool video of RC4 at Red Buuuuuuud

and below the Red Bud National video recap where we saw a crazy 250 race and the first overall win in the 450 class for Josh Grant

MX nationals Shocker - #800 out for the season

It was his to lose and that's what just happened. As hard as it is too believe, after Ryan Villopoto dropped out of the season due to a knee injury, basically handing over the championship to his Amateur years arch-rival, Mike Alessi hurt himself badly yesterday evening while practicing for the High Point MX National. Mike's injury is pretty serious with first reports of a split knee-cap.
The title chase is back for grab with Reed, Josh Grant and Andrew Short all in good position.

Very unfortunate and very sad for Mike who was on a roll after going 1-1 at Hangtown and Freestone.

AMA Superbike - Road America

I am at Road America for the weekend for Round 6 of the AMA Superbike series. Got here in the afternoon after stopping by Corse Superbike (one of my favorite dealers, North of Milwaukee). The Yoshimura Suzuki riders were expected for an autograph session along with Pegram for Ducati but I left before they arrived, as I had lots of stuff to unload at the National Guard Jordan rig. Got all my stuff ready for tomorrow and made sure Geoff and Aaron were all good (I need to remember to give deep knee sliders to Geoff for their testing sessions in Ohio next wednesday); Met one of the future of US road racing, James Rispoli and got him some of his gear but still missing his new GP-Tech helmet.

Tomorrow I'm out of here by 7. It's practice, qualies and Superpole. , I will need to go check Blake Young (Rockstar Makita Yosh' Suzuki) then Neil Hodgson at Corona Extra Honda and see if he's all ok with his AGV helmet, check his team mate Jake Holden and make sure he's got sliders and check if he needs a back-protector. Then Steve Rapp and then the RoadRacingWorld.com guys.
When that's all done, Spike and I will set up the AGV Dainese EZ-up behind the NG rig and I'll get the 2-up gear ready.

This is a really beautiful track and the region is gorgeous at this time of the year. I wish I rode a bike here instead of a work van. The roads around here are fun.

In my hotel bedroom right now, lots of bikes out in the night.

I'll catch up later.

The SLC Incident

Before I write about this outstanding season and say what I think about things, here's a very cool video of the Salt Lake City SX incident, generator of the Mother of all Dramas.

JS7 is the 2009 AMA/FIM SX Champ

Untitled from ZMAN on Vimeo.

Las Vegas SX press-conference, The heat Is On

Very good press-conference in Las Vegas today as the end nears on this fantastic Supercross season. All the hype was from the lack of it and the mysterious absence of series points leader James "Bubba" Stewart. There has been no information as to why James is not there and the last time he updated his Twitter account was 2 days ago when he was on his way to Vegas.

Here's the link to the Racer X Illustrated report by Steve Cox and some quotes of the p-c.

Chad is good this year, he talks a lot more and says the right things. He definitely insinuate often that Larry Brooks is playing with people's mind and has a somehow negative influence at times.

His views on the Salt Lake City Incident:

QUOTE:
In regard to the incident last week with Kyle Chisholm, Reed had this to say: “I guess I’m just going to take my road, and I’ve always tried to be honest with you guys and tell you my side of the story and what I feel… Who can deny that it was intentional? You watch the video and it’s quite obvious – his line, and his position being a lap down, and the obvious of him being James’ teammate – and it was a shame. I don’t believe that Kyle’s a bad person or anything like that. I’ve heard that he’s a great guy, and I don’t know him personally, but it seems that he’s a good person. It seems weird that a good person would do that, so it’s a shame. But it’s all water under the bridge, and we’ll just live and learn. There’s a paper trail a mile long of what people in… Should I say, ‘His boss’ has done along the way? You look through the years and we can all find little things that he has done, and one that stands out most is sitting [Steve] Boniface out of a race [in 2003 at Millville with the Red Bull KTM team] because he wouldn’t help somebody, and taking his rear wheel out of the bike. I find it quite amusing, quite funny, and each and every one of the people sitting in this room I believe knows the truth and what really happened, whether they write that or not. Everyone has to be political.”

QUOTE:
Reed was also humble and admitted he was wrong in how he handled Ivan Tedesco a couple of years ago in “Chumpgate” and even Andrew Short last year. “I think I’ll take 100 percent of the heat with the Ivan thing. I was heated, and I felt that I was better than I was performing, and I was racing for position on the lead lap, and same with Shorty last year. I somewhat felt my walls coming in. I was hurt, and I didn’t want to be hurt, and I felt that I was good enough to win races, and it was a tough position to be in. I had people around me saying things and they were in my head, and I think the situation was made out worse than it really was. I think I made dumb choices, but at the end of the day, when you calm down and think about it, I was racing on the lead lap for a podium position. At that time, it was Shorty’s best 450cc main-event finish. So you live and learn.”

QUOTE:
To round it out, Reed commented on the importance of this title to him: “It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned a lot, but this title has a hell of a lot more riding on it than just that red background and number one. There’s a lot of pride involved, and there’s a lot of, I would call it, hatred over what happened last year, and the situation that it’s left in still to this day. There’s nothing more that I want to do than to stand on the podium tonight and be the champion, so I will do everything in my power to try and make that happen.”

And, like me, Chad Reed wasn't home-schooled, but I'm a washed-out wannabe motocrosser and he's a Champ

QUOTE:
Rupert X asked Chad how close he was to coming to blows with James on the podium in Jacksonville in their infamous face-off, to which Reed responded, “[Laughs] In order to come to blows, you’ve got to have somebody that’s willing to throw down, too. So I don’t think we were that close to getting ready to throw down. I grew up as a normal kid. I went to primary school and a regular school… I got on a bus, wore a uniform and everything like that, so I grew up in a playground, not like most of these motocross kids that are home-schooled… I don’t know, I had fun with it, and I was heated, but for good reasons, I believe.”

Welcome to Las Vegas, People!!

Time flies and we have 1 more SX to go

Been pretty good at not being good with this blog.

We're 48 hours from the finales of the 2009 AMA Supercross series. Reigning Champ Chad Reed is 6 pts behind James Stewart before the last 20 laps. 6 points that summarize this exciting, unnerving, crazy, shocking season to the best. 6 points to sum up this SX bitter rivalry between Reedy and Bubba. A rivalry that has taken us back to the golden years of Supercross with Bob Hannah versus everyone else, or the great battles of Damon Bradshaw vs. Jeff "Chicken" Matiasevich.

Even if James Stewart has been the fastest all season long, he has not been the most consistent and Chad, until his nightmare night in Seattle, has proven that he could win this championship and win it with pride and merit. 2009 brought a new Chad to the stage and this guy deserves a lot of props because he is much faster than the Chad of 2008, fiter and smarter. Even though I am openly a fan of James Stewart, I have really enjoyed watching Reed race this season and have a renewed respect for the way he handled this season, throughout the battles and brain games with his arch-nemesis. A rivalry that started a few seasons ago at Unadilla when those two were on 250Fs.

James should be able to win on Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium, as much as he can throw the title away by crashing under pressure or by pushing it to the limits of grip on the hard-pack Las Vegas dirt. As a fan, I trust that the #7 will take it, but as an observer of SX, I know that things can go the St Louis-way for the L&M rider.

Well, I have more to write about. Here's the Las Vegas SX track.

As we see dusk settle on the 2009 SX season and dawn rise on a new year of Motocross, as the 2009 AMA Outdoors National approaches, rumors are flying as fast as F-22s darting on Taliban positions in the Swat territories. We hear noises about Mike Alessi leaving the Factory Suzuki team, we hear that Chad may ride some Outdoors, that Bubba may ride some, that K-Dub will be at Glen Helen, that Factory Honda may not come back in 2010, that Ryan Dungey would be changing the color of his gear in 2010 and come back in red, or will it be blue, that there is trouble brewing at Monster Energy and that some internal issues are being taken care right now which could have some strong influence on Jason Lawrence's future in motocross, or if these rumors are founded, does this mean that J-Law will start to walk straigth and do what teams and sponsors expect from professional riders? Mate, if you start listening to all these rumors, or start believing in them, you could write a Fantasy novel... or not... political fiction? Reports? ;-)

It snowed in Chicago and we have 4 Supercross races to go

Today March 29th, the Chicagoland woke up with a thick blanket of snow, so thick one of the large bushes in our backyard just collapsed under the weight. Unbelievable, at a time when I was getting exciting that Spring was settling in enough for the mountain-bike trails to dry a bit. An tomorrow the forecast is calling for 49F.... more mud.

Well, talk about being a non-consistent blogger, my production follows Davi Millsaps' Supercross results this season. After traveling to New-Orleans and St Louis for AGV and Dainese business events and witnessing the SX races in the Superdome and the Edward Jones Dome, I stayed home this weekend and followed Jason Lawrence's Canadian misadventures on the webcast (Holley and Weege's excitement level during the SX LCQ had never risen that high before) and through the live blog of one of the best citizen-journalists of the moment, Steve Matthes' Pulp MX.

New Orleans SX (March 14th)

It was my first trip down to Louisiana and, apart from a Friday the 13th flight down to a land of black magic and voodoo, I really enjoyed the trip and town. New-Orleans is full of history and character, has great restaurants, lounges and boutique hotels but still keeps an eerie feeling at time, with testimonies from Katrina's disaster. We were treated with good heavy rains during the weekend which was a bit of a bummer in the pits, although the privateers and some non-factory teams were pitted inside the stadium. The Superdome is a pretty big place but looked empty due to the smallish turn-out of 36,000+ souls. It isn't bad though considering the area, the economy and the fact that many didn't make the trip from TX, AL, FL, KY or Mississippi due to the cost of gas and travel.
Of course the shocker in the 250F was the non-qualification of Martin Davalos and Nico Izzi who didn't make the Main. Martin ended up being hurt when Lemoine landed/rode on his legs in their Heat and Izzi who faced some bad luck and bad starts, even in the LCQ.
Christophe Pourcel had 2 very bad starts but saved it with a good 4th place in the Main while Austin Stroupe did what he had to do and took the 25 points as he is trying to come back on his PC team mate. Jesseman (after a good manly pass on Wharton in the last corner) got a well deserved 2nd and Blake "Purple Rain" Wharton took his 1st podium of the year in 3rd.

In the 450 Main things settled very quickly with Bubba gapping Chad Reed and going for his 8th win of the season. The only exciting things during that Main Event: Broc Hepler's 1st podium of the year and Kevin Windham coming back from 8th to 4th, passing a few good guns on the way and melting the gap with Hepler. of course this is K-Dub's home and the crowd was cheering all the way for him, even when he was passing lappers, LOL! Maybe, with 2 more laps, he could have got by Hepler and make it a race. Not sure.
The Transportation Revolution, the Triumph,Ducati and Vespa dealer in New-Orleans, run by Zach and Max Materne and their parents did an amazing job with the AGV Open House party they organized on the Friday before the race. I was very surprised and happy by the good turn-out and results. If you're traveling to New Orleans, go visit that shop.

St Louis SX (March, 21st)

A Friday evening Parts Unlimited dealer showcase motivated my trip South to St Louis, home of the Cardinals and Budweiser (me likey). I drove down the mostly boring highway to Missouri, stopping on the way at Hall's Cycle, the Ducati and Husqvarna dealer in Springfield, the Illinois State Capital. Hall's is mostly an "off-road" dealer and probably the biggest Husqvarna representation in the Midwest. They told me they had sold about 22 Huskies in the last month which was pretty positive and motivating news in regards to the actually state of the economy.
Friday morning I visited Donelson Cycles, the oldest dealership in St Louis and one that I really suggest because they have a small Dirt Track and MX bikes museum in their St Ann' store. Very cool with some Penton, BSA, Triumph scramblers and more; definitely worth the visit.
I don't think that the Dealer Showcase was very good with a small number of dealers coming, despite the free dinner, the complementary VIP passes for the SX and the presence of motorcycle superman Travis Pastrana. But I would think that it is a correct representation of the St Louis region which looks pretty touched by the economical crisis and poorer than most places where I travel through.

Well, that was the big USP (upper selling point) at the St Louis Supercross, apart from the ongoing very tight race between San Manuel Yamaha James "Bubba" Stewart and Rockstar Makita Suzuki Chad Reed: the guest-star of the night was the guru of the Nitro Circus tribe, the #199, the Master of all Backflips, the fast, charismatic, crazy, ADD, super nice, entertaining, great-for-the-sport and the designer of the very goodly alternatively exciting St louis SX track, Travis "TP199" Pastrana

TP raced St Louis because he had a debt to Feld Motorsports after crashing his 199 Monster truck during a backflip attempt for the Nitro Circus TV show. The debt included TP's participation to 1 SX and to the finals of Feld's Monster Jam series.
Pastrana offered us 2 (two!) backflips during the opeing ceremonies and raced his heart out. It was awesome to see him again on a track and to see that he still has speed, despite his drastic lack of "race training". Travis had the speed need to make the Main but got unlucky, kind of crashed, couldn't restart the bike and ended up destroying his left radiator in the LCQ. His presence was very good for the crowd and the Edward Jones Dome was quasi-full. Rumor has it that TP is frustrated with his STL results and is planning to try again this season, probably in Salt Lke City, home of Ogio and Nitro Circus member Andy Bell.

Back to racing. One week after New Orleans, St Louis gave us another shocker and a good surprise to Factory Connection Honda when Blake Wharton won his first Main event (it is also the first Lites Main event win by a Texan - thanks DC for that info). Austin Stroupe did what he had to do again, trying to eat points away from his French team mate, coming back to second despite a bad start. CP had bad first laps but managed to finish 5th overall, controlling his lead in the series.
Nico Izzi was a very disappointing 3rd of the night. Why disappointing? Because I believe that he has the speed to win a Main but does not have the level of fitness necessary for that. In the first half of this race he wasn't able to charge on Wharton, never really threathening him for 1st and in the second half he just faded, giving Stroupe the opportunity to come back on him like an Exocet missile locked on his target and ended up throwing away the 2nd spot when AS past him with half a lap to go. At this level, you don't fade half a lap from the end of a Main: you crash trying, you resist until the end, you block your opponent, you ghost ride your bike of the finish line, you go find that last rush of adrenaline deep inside you for an extra 30 seconds.
Noticeable riders in this Lite main were Matt Goerke, Steven Clarke, Matt Lemoine.

We had a very exciting night in the 450 class (you can check my other log for some of the live comments during the race) but I know that you have already watched the race on TV, read the various race reports on Racer X and others.
Travis definitely designed a challenging track but I didn't think that Stewart would be the main victim of that very cool track layout. James went down twice in his heat, just making it into the main. He then went to pass Chad Reed for the lead in the Main and had established a nice 5 or 6 seconds gap when he missed a shift and crashed. Shocker! Chad got by and controlled the remaining laps taking a deserved win in Missouri and taking his lead back to 11 points with 5 races to go. Wow, is that a tight series or what!?
5 races to go, 25 pts for a win, 22 pts for a 2nd... Skippy needs to win 2 more races to seal the title; James Stewart needs to win them all. Anything can happen.

Jason Lawrence raced in St Louis (after missing Indy and New Orleans) and rode well and smart. he moved away for Reed and Stewart, not wanting to interfere with their race and rode behind Short in 5th for most of the Main, not trying anything stupid but after having parked Mike Alessi in the first laps. Lawrence has the speed to be a major factor in the 450 class and has proven that he knows how to race with his head too, when needed. I hope this gave him a boost of motivation for the last 2 rounds of the West Lites series when they roll into Seattle and Salt Lake City. Could he be a factor in the race between Weimer and Dungey? Maybe...

Toronto SX (March 9th)

Well, I didn't travel across the border in Canada but I wish I had because it is one of my favorite town in Northern America (with New York, San Francisco, Quebec, New Orleans) and I have good memories from time spent there with my bud Lorne White.
So I listened on the webcast and will be watching the CBS broadcast after I'm done blogging :-)
#377 Christophe Pourcel wins the Lites Main event and wins his first US title with the East Coast Lites 2009 Championship.
"Felicitations" to the Frenchy who is coming back from hell after being paralyzed for 8 months due to his dramatic crash in 2007. An example of determination, of work and believing in it. I have tremendous respect for Mitch Payton who believed in the kid and stood by him during the last year and a half, when Christophe was in recovery, trying to walk and ride again.
Stroupe finished second, first podium for Tickle in third and Izzi, once again had an inconsistent night.

James Stewart win in Toronto, Chad goes 2ndand Josh Hill rides awesome to 3rd overall! Great work for the #75.
So James eats 3 points back and we've got Skippy with an 8 pts lead with 4 to go. Gnarly!