Posts
9770
Joined
8/21/2006
Location
Weatherford, TX, USA
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 6:07am
Re-watched the TV coverage...They did catch some cool things at that race.
Houston has good dirt. Don't like the stadium. The tracks are smaller than the Dome...it's almost too small for an SX.
Everyone knows the track was "jumpy". My memory of the '90s races was inside and outside lines in most turns. That's gone...there was an inside line in the S turn, but that's it. Even if they start inside, the drift to the outside on exit. The obstacles are built all the way to the entrance/exit of the turn. No way to take an inside line w/ speed.
Two things I thought were cool and watched in slo-mo:
1) Izzi's pass over the triple in the heat race. It was risky, but it worked and it was really amazing.
2) James passing RV...he didn't actually turn sharper than RV in that corner, but he carried a lot more speed...and watch the exit. He can scrub the Yamaha. Very cool to watch.
I also think that James' pass showed the fast line through that corner. Setting up slightly outside, he was able to work with the bowl shape a bit better than RV and blasted into and out of that corner.
Reed was cruising and riding smooth...but, he wasn't aggressive. Which was probably smart. I think he had more in the bag, but no reason to throw it away with James leading at +9 seconds on a 50 second track.
The Stroupe incident was just racing. The 250 guys seem to get tunnel vision...Stroupe zoned in on a line and really wasn't expecting Durham to drift over...which he did move over into Austin's line. Or you could say their lines came together.
Sorby is a nut. He will get someone hurt riding like that.
RV will get faster as the season progresses. He is still adjusting to the 450s.
Hope Mikey keeps riding smart and comes in 100% to the Nationals.
10 years ago, half the guys that made the night show in both classes would struggle just to circulate the track. Now, every kid on a 250f makes all the big jumps and most of the main lines in the rhythm sections. Don't know if it's just the better bikes or if they are more prepared to ride SX, but as a whole, the racers are much better at SX than they were when I started going to races.
The tracks aren't perfect, but I for one appreciate the efforts of the track designers to try new things and give us better racing.
Houston has good dirt. Don't like the stadium. The tracks are smaller than the Dome...it's almost too small for an SX.
Everyone knows the track was "jumpy". My memory of the '90s races was inside and outside lines in most turns. That's gone...there was an inside line in the S turn, but that's it. Even if they start inside, the drift to the outside on exit. The obstacles are built all the way to the entrance/exit of the turn. No way to take an inside line w/ speed.
Two things I thought were cool and watched in slo-mo:
1) Izzi's pass over the triple in the heat race. It was risky, but it worked and it was really amazing.
2) James passing RV...he didn't actually turn sharper than RV in that corner, but he carried a lot more speed...and watch the exit. He can scrub the Yamaha. Very cool to watch.
I also think that James' pass showed the fast line through that corner. Setting up slightly outside, he was able to work with the bowl shape a bit better than RV and blasted into and out of that corner.
Reed was cruising and riding smooth...but, he wasn't aggressive. Which was probably smart. I think he had more in the bag, but no reason to throw it away with James leading at +9 seconds on a 50 second track.
The Stroupe incident was just racing. The 250 guys seem to get tunnel vision...Stroupe zoned in on a line and really wasn't expecting Durham to drift over...which he did move over into Austin's line. Or you could say their lines came together.
Sorby is a nut. He will get someone hurt riding like that.
RV will get faster as the season progresses. He is still adjusting to the 450s.
Hope Mikey keeps riding smart and comes in 100% to the Nationals.
10 years ago, half the guys that made the night show in both classes would struggle just to circulate the track. Now, every kid on a 250f makes all the big jumps and most of the main lines in the rhythm sections. Don't know if it's just the better bikes or if they are more prepared to ride SX, but as a whole, the racers are much better at SX than they were when I started going to races.
The tracks aren't perfect, but I for one appreciate the efforts of the track designers to try new things and give us better racing.
I didn't catch any of the Sorby stuff during the LCQ. I was over on the East side of the stadium for that race.
I agree with you that the level of competency in both classes is much higher than it has been.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scs0yuXwwz0
I despise that they use "u" and "y" instead of "you" and "why"
Anyone got it??
The commentators are very annoying too, PLEASE change them
I mentioned the inside versus outside line thing...those days are gone. Not sure if using track layouts from the 90's would bring them back either. The bikes are much faster and capable of jumping things that weren't possible in those days. I think that today's bikes would allow a rider to just jump over a lot of the obstacles that they guys had to navigate back then and also led to them being able to take an inside line in a bowl turn. Also, the turn area was deeper. If you wanted to sweep the turn, you risked getting blocked by someone hugging the tuff blocks/hay bails.
I need to transfer my old races from tape to DVD...then I can upload some videos and we can compare track layouts for real.
Pit Row
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