Upgrade to enjoy this feature!
Vital MX fantasy is free to play, but Premium users receive great benefits. Premium benefits include:
- View and download rider stats
- Pick trends
- Create a private league
- And more!
Only $10 for all 2026 SX, MX, and SMX series.
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Free shipping: VITALMX
These pics are from a thread on here from awhile ago, idk how some of you can say that this looks easy to years past. I raced red bud on pro weekend last year and the track was somewhat similar. Just long ruts going through straights and turns. Difference is you can come in so much faster and you just hop out of the rut if you come into it to hot. Dilla not so much, you come in to hot and cross rut. You're going down hard.
Here's something else to ponder. Watching that old vid from Dilla I'm going to bet most of us could make it around that track one lap without crashing. How many of you think you could do one lap around the track from the pictures below without crashing?
My last edit I promise. I guess the whole letting tracks get rougher this year because our recent trips to the mxdn is out the window. This is from 2012 before we even raced the lommel mxdn.
"You know, throughout history, I bet every old man probably said the same thing. And old men die. And the world keeps spinning."
I have rode at Glen Helen on Thursday at 3pm after everyone is gone and at Southwick after a week of rain. The bikes Hannah rode wouldn't even make it around those tracks.
There is safe rough--deep ruts and some acceleration and breaking bumps, long rolling whooped out sections--and there is unsafe rough--square edges in high speed sections. And safe rough does separate the riders. I think tracks have, in general, gotten rougher in the safer way (at least in America, don't know much about overseas), but Thunder Vallley looked unsafe rough. Probably why Tomac and Stewart both ended their seasons on the same section.
when these ruts get so deep that you stick the bike, something needs to be done...
Jeremy Martin wouldn't have the points lead right now if GH was tilled before the moto... His bike wouldn't start, how would
he charge to fifth if there's no way to gain time?... He would pick them off here or there by late braking... But He would be
going down the straights about the same as all the others...
Different terrains develop in different ways - a hard packed blue grooved circuit littered with tiny squared edge bumps everywhere may not look anywhere near as rough as the above post National Unadilla pictures, but it's every bit (perhaps more) challenging, especially if you're not used to dealing with it and the bike isn't set-up accordingly.
This, along with many other things (i.e today's GP riders are just as good, different practice formats, different layouts, a degree of luck etc) is what has been throwing a curve ball toward Team America over the past few years. And personally, though I have also enjoyed the National tracks this year as a viewer; I don't think it's easily solved by just letting the tracks rough up a bit more (though that will help). What you really need is wider terrain variety imo. On the flip side, when the GP riders come to the USA for the MXDN or as a career move etc; the shoe will often be on the other foot. That's just the way it is.
Pit Row
I'm thinking they till the dirt too deep. Why do we need 18 inches of loam? 4-6" is deep enough to get things started. Have some natural grass areas. But we have to fix the crazy long ruts.
Which will never happen so zip it
You realize that a high-speed section with a bunch of bumps in it is just called a slow-speed section, right??
Dungey is a perfect example. He knows that in order to go fast you have to be smooth. And to be smooth, you sometimes have to go slow. If a section is too rough to fast, slow the fuck down! DUH!?!
First people complain about the jumps being too big, so they knock the jumps down. Now the tracks are boring though, so they let them get all rutted up. Now they complain about the ruts because they can't go fast enough to pass someone or make it over that jump. Ok, so let's get rid of the ruts. Now that we can go fast, the jumps aren't big enough, so let's make bigger jumps. But then not everyone can make it over the jumps, so we knock them down again and the cycle starts over... You'll never make everyone happy no matter how much you try.
So yeah, maybe I want to have my cake and eat it too, but I want to see these guys riding the most gnarly, rough, rutted, steep, tracks they can throw at them...AND racing each. And its possible.
You don't have to be going mach 2 to have good racing. You can have riders racing each other while "tip toeing" (if anyone calls what the pros do through these ruts "tip toeing" you must be Stephan Everts or Ricky Carmichael...to me they are flying) through 12 inch deep, 200 yard parallel ruts. That's exciting to me.
I say never touch the national tracks...just leave them alone, add water, and let them race year after year.
Post a reply to: It seems some of the riders have been complaining about track conditions