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)
:)

Monday Morning Video: Josh Hill vs. Marvin Musquin at Madrid SX

Here's a cool little video to start a good Thanksgiving week. Although Marvin Musquin, the French wonder of the moment, won the SX race later that night, Josh Hill took him for an SX school session in the one-on-one.

Hill is looking good right now, better than ever, getting fitter and ready for the 2010 SX season. Next European stop for the L&M rider will be the Supercross of Geneva in Switzerland.



Here's JH75 versus Spanish MX1 star Johnatan Barragan

Bercy SX 09 - Sunday

Josh Hill wins the Main Event on Sunday afternoon in Paris after James Stewart pulled out before the start of the race.
Congrats to the new L&M Yamaha rider!

1 75 HILL Josh Yamaha USA
2 20 ARANDA Gregory Kawasaki FRA
3 25 MUSQUIN Marvin KTM FRA
4 871 IZOIRD Fabien Suzuki FRA
5 114 BRAYTON Justin Yamaha USA
6 11 DEMARTIS Stéphane Honda FRA
7 33 SOUBEYRAS Cédric Honda FRA
8 27 WEY Nick Kawasaki USA
9 45 THOMAS Jason Suzuki USA
10 111 DEGLI ESPOTI Davide Suzuki ITA
11 54 BONI Matt Honda USA
12 15 RENET Pierre Alexandre Suzuki FRA

Here's a video from James Stewart's press-conference earlier in Paris:


Interview met James Stewart from Motocrossplanet on Vimeo.

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 video by James Stewart

Getting ready for this weekend's US Open.


JS1 from Donn Maeda on Vimeo.

"We don't race niggers here!"

said a track owner somewhere in the South, a few years back, "Good, because we came to race dirt bike!!" What a great reply by James Stewart senior. I saw this documentary few months ago on ESPN but DV12 just posted it on his blog and I wanted to share it again.

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? ;-)