Test Track Bits: Valli Motorsports Rockstar Yamaha and MotoConcepts Yamaha 1


While it's all business on Saturdays, the hard work of trying to improve happens on Monday through Thursday, when riders work with their mechanics and coaches, and turn in tons of laps. While the tracks were rained out in December, they're now baked hard and very slick, like at the Yamaha track, where we found Valli Motorsports Rockstar Yamaha's Nick Wey, Austin Stroupe, and Ricky Dietrich, as well as MotoConcepts Yamaha's Kyle Chisholm and Vince Friese. Here's some of what they were up to.









Nick was showing us some love at the Yamaha track, sporting his Vital MX sweatshirt, but he had a suggestion for placement of some additional design work. When we asked, he laughed, and said it'd be some text that would read, "I love when they talk about me on the Vital MX Forums."


Nick's been dealing with a sore back, and spent some time off the bike last week to get it dialed.













While dialing in his start and on-track technique with Randy Lawrence, Nick was also breaking in some new black and yellow TCX boots to debut this weekend in Houston.












We spotted a question in the Forums asking what happened to Austin Stroupe last weekend. He rode practice, but was still suffering the affects of a practice crash in the whoops at Oakland, and was in some serious pain, so he ended up sitting out Anaheim II. Unfortunately, it wasn't in the same shoulder that he hurt last year at Houston, but the opposite side. While he's a lot better this week, he'll sit out Houston on the advice of his doctor, and get ready for San Diego.










Every time we see Austin in action, he's getting faster. Once he builds some more stamina, he'll be a serious threat. He's already looking forward to the end of the outdoor series, when he'll have a plate removed from his shoulder.








One guy we were really happy to see in action was MotoConcepts Yamaha's Kyle Chisholm, who took a gnarly digger in practice last week. He's also tired of being a consistenly a top ten guy and was well on his way to a possible top five last week at Anaheim II. Well, at least he was until the lower half of his shroud got snagged and was sticking out. While concentrating on trying to fix it, as he rode, he washed the front end and went down.










Here's a look at Kyle's practice chest protector, contructed from a Leatt Brace and the shells from an O'Neal chest protector. Yeah, he credits them with helping prevent injuries last week.










While he's still a bit creaky from last week's crash, that didn't prevent Kyle from busting out some of his "freestyle".










Vince Friese in the saddle. With the hills nice and green, riders are already starting to dream about riding the outdoor series.



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