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442
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3/7/2016
Location
Mountain City, TN, USA
Edited Date/Time
5/9/2017 3:57pm
I listened to the post race podcast. Matthes is flat out wrong. I give Tomac a 0.5% (1/200) chance of winning the title if he just runs away and goes for the win. Basically he would be hoping Dungey (the most consistent rider in history) crashes or the bike breaks down. I give Tomac at least a 25% chance of winning the title with the method he tried by bunching up the field. I almost had to turn off the podcast because of how stupid Matthes sounded with his argument.
I am a General in the Steve Matthes Army. I have listened to Pulp from the beginning, and listened to his podcasts for years before Pulp even started. But Steve was 122% wrong on that podcast, and was a pulsating, throbbing, varicose dick vein about it on top of that. I was LOL'ing at JT$'s Twitter prediction.
So overall I agree with JT and Weigandt that bunching definitely increased the odds of winning somewhat but the plan probably doesn't work without on purpose aggressive contact which likely is a violation. Gallagher even said the rule of always racing forward to your ability was in place to prevent riders from drifting backwards or waiting for another rider just to hit them. That applies to this case but not the Marvin case.
Consider this though, in hindsight if Tomac just blew the doors off Dungey and won by 15 seconds he would have lost the actual title but everyone would be talking about how Tomac was the fastest and Dungey had nothing for him. Instead he pretty much validated Dungey's championship by throwing everything he had, including questionable team tactics, so we are now talking about how composed and consistent Dungey is as champion. I'm sure Dungey and Red Bull were pissed during the race but Tomac's strategy actually worked to their advantage in the end.
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Love Matthes and his work but that was painful.
I think Tomac knew what he had to do once Ryan got a great start. There was no way he could just pass him and hope for a mistake of some sort, he had to force the issue and slow him down if he wanted any chance at the title. If Ryan gets a bad start I guarantee you Eli goes balls to the wall to gap him.
Pit Row
If it was not premeditated by the team before the race, it cannot be considered team tactics. If Marvin made the decision to let his team mate by, that is Marvin's personal choice and not team tactics. Same with Josh Grant and Tomac.
I just think it was 1 lap too late. Imagine if the main have had 1 more lap: i think Tomac would have made a hard pass on Anderson while I think Dungey would have saved the 4th place and avoided any contact with Grant. Championship gap: 2 points with this scenario.
In all cases, that was fun to watch, what a season!
Don't use a lame ass argument like that when you don't know for sure it wasn't discussed prior to the race.
Tomac's plan was perfect. The bumping could have got Ryan's mind of his game. He didn't clean him out. He was just getting under his skin. It's the same strategy used by all of Matthe's ice hockey heroes. If Ryan's not focused, then he turns into Stew and smash-O. Tomac Wins.
For the position Tomac was in, it was the brilliant plan and if Reed, Grant, and Baggett don't fall, there's a 50% chance one of them gets around Dungey.
The only other option Tomac had as to pull an Osbourne on Dungey on the last lap. That would have easily won the championship, but I think Tomac didn't want to win it like that. IMO, of course.
Surely no one who listens to Matthes considers his opinion fact, entertaining though.
Do I think Musquin pulled over for Dungey? Yes he probably did, do I think DeCoster ordered it, I don't think he did. But that is merely speculation on my part. In the end it really doesn't matter either way Dungey has the #1 plate and Eli doesn't. Neither team was fined or penalized so on we go to the outdoor championship, and we can only hope it is as exciting as the indoor season was.
Post a reply to: Matthes you got it wrong (Post race podcast)