The Good, Bad & Ugly A1

GOOD:

Anderson: I agree with you. Looked like his old self on this new bike. 
 

Jett: What else can you say? He’s phenomenal. 
 

Ferrandis: Top 5 on a non factory program is very impressive. 
 

Webb: Having that kind of raw speed already is going to make this series interesting. Looked great all day and should have finished 3rd at worst. 
 

Beaumer: I think he was the biggest surprise of the day. I have been following him for a while and no he has been riding supercross for a long time before he got his deal with KTM. He looked very good in the futures class last year, but he came out flying and looked comfortable which is something we have not seen a lot on the 250 KTM. 
 

Plessinger, RJ, Smith, Vohland: All these guys rode good all day. Vohland definitely looks like the most improved rider. 
 

BAD

Sexton: He did not look like the guy at all from last year. In the main, he got dropped by the top three pretty quickly. I know he’s on a new bike and program, but at no point during the day did he look like himself. Podium is great all things considered. 

Tomac: For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I did not notice him at all during the day. He will get better. 
 

AC9: Didn’t really seem comfortable at all at A1. I was hoping for a little improvement since he has been healthy. 
 

UGLY: 

Hunter: Hunter had a rough weekend. Between crashing on press day and then nothing going right at all during race time, A1 was nothing short of a disaster for Hunter. 
 

Beta: These guys lost their number one rider Colt before A1, had reported mechanical issues with Bloss resulting in a DNF in the heat and LCQ, and Short didn’t even make the night show. To further compound it, they were barely brought up at all during the broadcast and AMA didn’t even have their logo for the timed qualifying pages. 
 

Craig: I really believed Craig would show big improvement coming into this year. Craig started great in his heat race and then went backwards very quickly. I don’t know what happened in the main but saw that he finished 20th. His whoop speed is gone in the Husky as well. 
 

Just my $0.02

Webb is going to be a factor for sure. If he could have gotten around Anderson, he’d have made a run at Jett. Now he knows to never ever be nice to Anderson. He should have already known that. But now he will know for sure. 

Well, the Ando/Webb battles should be good this year!

Good: Roczen was flying coming through the pack. Had he had a better start and/or not got tangled he easily could’ve battled at the front

I think Webb exposed a little kink in Jett’s armor…..attack him early to get him out of his rhythm 

Webb was the biggest surprise of the night, he was fast and crafty everywhere on the track except the whoops. His whoops speed in the heat race looked ok, but in the main he was barely faster that Prado, and he's never ridden them before. If he could dial in the whoops he would have left Ando behind and possibly made it interesting.

Good: Julien Beaumer is the son of a business friend. He earned me some fantasy points! 

Bad: Ken Roczen got screwed. He might not have won, but I like rooting for him and he certainly would have fared better without the first-turn crash. 

Ugly: Did Triumph even race? I don't remember hearing about them at all. Who was riding? Where did he finish? 

Triumph will debut at the East rounds 

Are you f`ng kidding me......

No mention of Beta either.....  in RDL they didn't even have Beta logos in the results.      

I love how any positive mention of Webb brings out immediate thumbsdowns  (not just your post in this thread).   That's when you know you've hit the mark. 

The Good:    Webb is hot once again this year and is gonna make things interesting.  Tomac back!   Justin Cooper results.   Ken Roczen showing once again how great the "dinosaur" Suzuki is.  Weege and Katey (?) team,  a great addition to the broadcast. 

The Bad:  Some of the same old stupid broadcast crap...including missing key passes, cutting to full screen shots of Jett reacting to brothers crash for an unconscionable amount of time while actual racing is happening.    

The Ugly:   The lynchmob "fans" putting fault on Vince for 1st turn pile up. 

I put a thumbs up because I fully agree with you about everything. I get that jett is the next best thing but do we really need him shoved down our throats 24/7? Also, I just hope that I am not half asleep during most of the sx season like during mx, I just want to see other battles out of the top 10.

Here are mine. Just the ones that I didn't expect. Jett and RJ winning shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone

Good:
AP- I don't think he gets enough credit for this weekend. He was amazing. Fastest rider in the whoops and just looked really good all day. Slow in practice doesnt mean much for AP. In the heat he was affected by Hunter going down and still made it back to 2nd. Main same thing. Not a great first lap and then started picking guys off and made it to 4th. He's a podium contender and I had him around 7-11 before A1.

Webb- His heat was the highlight of the night for me. If he stays this close to Jett pace-wise he'll have a really good shot at the title. Can't wait to see him try and mess with Jetts head in free practice next week.

Beaumer- Damn he looked good. His main event result doesn't reflect how well he rode tonight. He'll be on the podium very soon and can easily win a main this season. He may very well have a better rookie season than Deegan last year and this coast isn't easy.
 

Bad:
Mookie- Not "bad" but I expected much more from him. Especially after how good he looked at the test track. Saw him ride in Murietta and he looked a lot better than Sexton on the test track. Maybe it was only nerves and he'll get better from here on out.

AC- AC did not look good at all. Just looked to be riding at 70% all day and scared to push it further. Prado was faster than him in the main. AC only caught and passed him after Prado started to double through the second set of whoops.

Ugly:
Craig- Not sure what was wrong there but he just looked stiff all day. 

Friese- Not much to say there... For the sake of the other riders I hope he tore some ligament in his Deano takeout and will be out for some races. He's just a landmine on wheels. The 3 incidents (Hunter, Mookie and Kenny, Wilson) weren't the only ones. He got really sketchy multiple times in both of his races and about took out half a dozen other riders.

Thrasher- That has to be a tough one to swallow. Not sure what's wrong with him but even if he's healthy this title is pretty much out of reach now.

Vital should just make this their article. 

Good:

Jett: Doing Jett things, managing gaps, and even making mistakes(I know, shocking) he was getting sketch in the whoops sometimes.

Anderson: This year seems like it is going to be a good year for him, he flips between bad years and good years. He is looking really good, maybe a win in the future:

AP: I don't like how not a lot of people are talking about how he was the fastest in the whoops all night and he is also looking good.

Julien Beaumer: I think its awesome how he was able to lead about a lap or so and be able to keep up with the top guys, but he dropped back which is completely understandable with it being his first sx race. 

Kenny/JCoop: Both guys were in the back around the start and charged their way through the pack which isn't like justin cooper.

Bad: 

Eli: Don't hit the panic button yet, in his championship years he starts off slow just like he did in the race. Only thing that is kind of concerning is how far out he was in no mans land behind whoever was in 8th.

Webb: He looked so good, until he crashed, I hope he can get some good results and maybe be the one to pass jett to win a race eventually because he can do it.

AC: Not looking like the adam we need him to be, seemed to be having problems in the whoops which i don't blame him because two whoop sections back to back is no joke. Hopefully his arm issue doesn't come back up in the future.

The Chef: He looked ok, he seemed really tight and it looked like he got armpump because he started jumping the whoops pretty early. No panic button yet.

Ugly:

Craig: Still don't know what happened to him but I just hope he isn't getting in his head like he was last year, I just want him to be able to do better on this bike. 

Phil: I hope that him having this bike problem so early means that he may not have that bad of a crash in the future that hopefully doesn't take him, we need his personality in this sport.

Broadcast: Can they stop showing Jett as much as possible so we can watch good racing? We don't need to see him get on the bike every single race. You can talk about more people than just Jett and you can show people outside the top 10. 

Sound Levels: Who in their right mind decided that the sound of the track broadcast people(don't know what to call them) and the music can be louder than 22 250's and 22 450's at high revs on the start? That's insane, I have sensitive hearing so I will always be wearing at least one headphone(in this case airpod) or something because I'm not a fan of loud sounds, I really feel for the kids, babies and even adults that didn't have headphones on.

They showed Benny Bloss on screen for a while and mentioned the bike.

Yep.   One dominant rider is not good for the sport.   People lose interest if they're not seeing good battles.

I used to watch all the motos in full until last year.   I would just check the results.   Boring. 

We are on the same page regarding the "shoved down throat" mentality these days. 

Guess I missed it.    Woulda been nice to maybe cut one featurette of the CashCow Bros to do a highlight of Beta, their company/history and it's team.

The Good: 

40 year old Billy Laninovich riding a 250 for a week or so and coming within a few places of making the Main. 
 

The Bad: Hunters inability to get a better start n the LCQ. Race winning talent on a factory Honda has to do better than last place off the line against riders he is capable of lapping

The Good: that column back when Grant wrote it.

The Bad: that same column now.

The Ugly: switching from one to the other.

He must have been banged up from his crashes.. did not look like himself...

Good:

AP: Dude looked good all day really, he needs to get a start. 
 

JCoop: not going to lie, he was super solid! He was wayyy back in the main and moved around some fast guys. 

Smitty: Rode well, I wonder if he could have held RJ’s pace if he got a better start. 

Bad:

Kitchen: Faded. I was expecting a little more, said he got tight, hopefully he’ll bounce back and put it on the top step in San Fran. 
 

Tomac: I know it’s his first race back in a while and his A1 results are typically not great, but I think we all agree that he didn’t look no where near himself. 
 

Ugly:

Beta

Karnow’s leg. 

Good:

- Surprised nobody brought this up: Jordon Smith keeping his head cool for the first time since he turned Pro. He rode impressive and stable. 

- Beaumer. Looked like a veteran

- Webb, already this good at the first round, damn

Bad

- Hunter not making the main. That sucks, but we have seen RV2 missing a main once as well He will bounce back 

- Malcolm, that was not his best ride. Did he crash two times in the first lap? Anyways, I expected a bit more. But hard to come back after such a horrible first lap

- Dean Wilson. He rode great the entire evening, but got cleaned out by Friese, glad he is ok!

Ugly

- The damn hip jump. It caused a lot of crashes the entire night. Hopefully Trasher is ok. 

The Good: the quality racing we had…at A1. Nice! And the riders that are “back in the saddle”…Anderson, Webb, Plessinger, Ferrandis…and more.

The Bad: Hunter’s struggle, Phil’s DNS…Damn. 

The Ugly: Logan’s leg-ankle. I’m just wishing him the best and shortest successful rehab possible.