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20957
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4/26/2009
Location
Sydney
AU
Edited Date/Time
6/2/2015 9:51am
Just listening to the colorado review at RacerX with Weege/JT & Matthes...
Who watched practice at Colorado? How bad was it? Had they already scraped the track bare of all the mud?
Just thought it kind seems counter-intuitive to "leave the tracks rough for the des-Nations" but then scrape mud off–they wouldn't do that over there.
How do we feel about it? Should it just be left and be a mudder? As dry as it was it seems like it would have been ok, especially on the side of a hill, but regardless, what's wrong with it being deep mud?
Who watched practice at Colorado? How bad was it? Had they already scraped the track bare of all the mud?
Just thought it kind seems counter-intuitive to "leave the tracks rough for the des-Nations" but then scrape mud off–they wouldn't do that over there.
How do we feel about it? Should it just be left and be a mudder? As dry as it was it seems like it would have been ok, especially on the side of a hill, but regardless, what's wrong with it being deep mud?
The racing in mud is still good, it wasn't so wet the spectators wouldn't turn up, and they won't do that at the MXdN
I don't see the harm in having a good old fashion mud race, especially seeing as the weather on race day was actually pretty good. The track would've improved a lot.
I just don't see why they have to add so much to the soil at each track. They seem to add saw dust and sand to nearly every circuit so they end up pretty similar. What's wrong with just racing on the natural terrain of that area. I thought Colorado was pretty good, obviously was pretty rutted because of the wet, but it was technical and challenging
The Shop
I hope it rains like hell in France @ the Des Nations...
While MX Sports did an amazing job getting the place ready, I feel it was a scary track on pro race day. The problem was that it had rained everyday for weeks before the race and the whole place was just spongy.
They did scrape the track, and had hundred of yards of new top soil they put out, just to keep it from being a mud bog. Had they not scraped it the race would have taken a much bigger toll on riders.
In my opinion, that track was way more challenging than Glen Helen, even Ryan Dungey said it was borderline dangerous.
Probably the most technical race of the year so far.
I also think it's a generational thing. Dust like we used to have to deal with is a thing of the past, and that is nothing but good. The track prep here is built around that as much as anything, trying to anticipate the quality of the track when the motos come around, particularly in view of the higher temps typically experienced here in the summer.
I'd rather accept that the GP guys can lean toward a more optimal outdoor setting because they don't ride SX and so don' feel the need for the familiarity of what they are used to after 4 months of SX. How tracks are prepped isn't going to address that, they certainly haven't addressed it by making national tracks smooth..
Tracks get prepped on both side of the pond. YS made a holy stink about much time they wanted to prep Budds in 07 (but that was as much a part of its BS campaign to disparage the NPG promoters). Even a lot of the "roughness" in tracks in both sides of the pond are the product of a prepped track settling in under the race weekend (ruts being the best example). The fact that a track is rough begs the question of whether it is rough in the classical sense or just beat. I've ridden plenty of tracks that were rough but rough because they were beat in the crappiiest way. Green grass and trees and yodeling locals don't make the racing surface good.
The compromise here has been to groom the tracks according to the need of the track for the final four premier motos. They should keep that paramount.
DC
MX Sports
Like I said, i didn't see practice (3am here?) so I don't know how muddy it was, but if it's rider safety, it seemed a lot of the riders thought the super hard slick hard ruts weren't safe either. Understand it's a no-win for people on your side, personally I'd say just prep the jump faces/landings and leave the rest, and more variety of soil the better.
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