How was your Easter weekend? If you’re a Supercross-class racer or race fan, it might have seemed a little on the slow side, since it was the first break for the Supercross season since Anaehim 1, back on January 6th…a 13-week run. To be honest, at first it felt odd for us to be home and not in an airport, but after a bit of extreme lounging, we were starting to get the hang of it. But by the end of the weekend, it was more of an angst…we needed a racing fix. The first race of the Champ Car series in Vegas? Eeh. There was no Cup race this weekend, and we’re still a couple weeks off from RC’s next race on four wheels. Guess we’ll just have to wait for the SX series to resume in Detroit (over a week away), or check out the Tivo coverage of the Arenacross wrap-up on Speed.
Of course, if you’ve O.D.’d on pastel colors and cutesy bunny images, you can try here…
After the first round of the GP season in The Netherlands last weekend, the international competitors had a weekend off before heading to Spain…well, sort of. Plenty of them were doing National Series events in their (or their a, like the third round of the Maxxis British MX Championship on the Cadders Hill circuit in Lyng, Norfolk. Molson Kawasaki’s Gareth Swanepoel had scored his first GP podium the previous week, and he took the MX2 overall, winning both moto. The series points leader, Tommy Searle, was second in both rounds on Sunday.
Two of the U.S. guys competing in the series, Mike Brown and Sean Hamblin, went 4-3 and 10…well, we’re not sure what Sean scored in the second moto, but he did end up 10th overall for the weekend. Meanwhile, Brownie was third, and is holding down third overall in the series, while Sean’s sixth. We haven’t heard much about Ryan Mills, other than he’d suffered a concussion before last week’s race in Holland, and that’s why he didn’t compete in the qualifiers.
On the MX1 side, Brad Anderson 1-2 was the top dog aboard his Pioneer Yamaha, followed by Billy Mackenzie (3-1), and James Noble (2-4). Belgian Ken De Dycker had a tough race, finishing sixth, but scoring a time penalty after the crash-damaged muffler on his CAS Honda failed a post-race sound check. De Dycker also suffered trouble in his second moto, with rear brake trouble.
Interestingly, class switching seems to be the norm over there, at the English round, Mike Brown races MX2, but opts for MX1 at the GPs. Meanwhile, at a Belgian National series event (with its three-moto format), Christope Pourcel was riding in the MX1 class, rather than his usual MX2. Steve Ramon took the win there, ahead Manuel Priem and Pourcel.
If you wanted to hop over to France for their National series, you could have seen Sebastien Pourcel top the results, ahead of Mickael Pichon and Julien Vanni.
Okay, that’s enough results to give us a recommended weekly allowance of racing. Our hands have stopped shaking, and we didn’t even have to dip into weekend results from the REM race at Glen Helen to get there.
Actually, we were hoping to also have some photos from Round 2 of the All-Japan MX series last weekend, but our contributor who’d traveled there sent an e-mail describing (in maybe a little too much detail) his difficulties with, “…bloody phlegm, high fevers and cold sweats.” Yuck...and get well soon, Ed.
What do we have to look forward to in the coming weeks? Well, every Tuesday we’re laying out what we’ve got on the National calendar, and you’re also welcome to add local events. Just send ">GuyB’s Profile (you have to be a Vital MX member) with the following info:
Dates:
Event Name:
Event Description:
Location/Track:
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If it’s worthwhile (and MX-related) we’ll work on getting it onto the site for you.
We can think of someone who had to be counting down days for sure… Yamaha of Troy’s Ryan Morais. Ryan’s easily been the most consistent guy on the track in the Supercrosss Lites East title chase, which he’s led for almost the whole series. (Atlanta, where Ryan Dungey won was the only round that Morais didn’t lead). Now he’s also got to stew through two another nearly two weeks of waiting to see if he can take the title in Detroit. When we talked to him a while back, he told Vital MX, “The season’s been awesome. I just came into it wanting to be top five every weekend, and I definitely exceeded my goal. I’m really happy right now.”
 | Ryan during practice in Indy. |
Ryan’s always been one of those naturally talented guys with tons of speed, all the way back to his mini days, but he had a rocky road ever since a gnarly crash 2002 when he was riding for Jeremy McGrath’s team that left him with a whole plate full of injuries. “I got hurt and came up short on a triple the first lap of a heat race and I broke my wrist, lacerated my spleen, and had to have my appendix taken out, too. I had like three surgeries on my arm to get it good to go. That’s what every year has been like since then. A lot of crazy injuries, and it’s not very fun when you’re getting hurt all the time.I was out that whole year and it’s kind of been snowballing every year since then.”
Even coming into this year, he had some issues with injuries. “Back in September I crashed and broke both my wrists and had a lot of time off. I just thought about where I’ve been and where I want to take this…or where I’d originally planned to take it, and it wasn’t even close. So I just put my head down and hired a trainer, Michael Johnson, who’s been working really good with me. I’ve been working really hard, and I’m on a good bike again…we’ve just been working together well. I got this opportunity to ride Yamahas again, and I was pumped.”
 | Ryan's been working extremely hard, and s ticking to his program is importan to him. |
As far as having the points lead, he’s taking it in stride. “I just take it like it’s a normal day…like I’m not leading the champinship. I just go race the race and try to do the best I can.”
We’d say that Ryan has to be the sentimental favorite, based on his years of injuries, but after the rough start that Ben Townley had after coming to America, he can’t be far behind…and right now the two riders are separated by three points.
We can’t wait for Detroit.
Of course, following up a segment about how a rider’s been plagued by injuries through his pro career with something like the following might be perceived as a bit odd, even though we tend to look at Ryan’s story as one of inspiration and persistence, versus a safety issue.
Over the years we’ve haven’t really had to struggle with the “biker” image like dirt trackers have, or Harley guys on the road. And we haven’t really had to worry about the same sort of public perception about safety that three-wheeled ATVs struggled with…before they were banned into oblivion. But maybe the following is a reminder that we have to wonder how we’re perceived among the portion of the world that doesn’t “get” motocross. But then we spotted an article that someone recently pointed out for a Fortune magazine story on cnnmoney.com, with the headline of, “Is Honda really the 'safety' company?” You can check out the text of the article here.
After reading it, we were wondering if a follow-up piece might be titled, “Is Fortune Magazine the home of well-researched and fair journalism?” They don’t seem to have a clue about helmet use among off-roaders and how it differs from the oad crowd, but when the biggest sanctioning body in the sport hangs their hat on a “Right to choose” attitude for helmet use on street riders (well chronicled in USA Today last week), and we’ve seen politicians latch onto far less and make a bigger deal about it, stories like this tend to make us a bit nervous.
We can’t even imagine how many antacids were being consumed in Torrance this week, even though we know what kind of emphasis that Honda puts into rider training and safety.
But on the other hand, with the instant access to videos like these, along with parents who choose to post them, there’s no shortage of ammo for safetyniks.
The bottom line is, we all need to think about safety, whether it's the gear we wear, the image we portray, or more, every time we head out.
We’re about out of ammo for this week, but we’d really like to get your opinion on this topic (or anything else you have to talk about) in the Vital MX Forums. 
4/9/2007 2:48pm
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