Sexton

I don't get the whole dad in the pits at a pro race thing, let alone girlfriends, kids, buddies, etc... A lawyer or doctor doesn't bring family members to the courtroom or operating room. Tom Brady's or Kobe's dad wasn't on the sidelines. This is a professional situation. I understand parents, family, and all that can bring a huge contribution to the program, but also a lot of unneeded baggage and emotions. Hangers on, people living vicariously through riders should give their contributions during the week perhaps. Of course, this will offend every mini dad who is an integral vital part of junior's third place finish in the 85D class at Rock Ridge raceway in 2007, sorry no offense intended. This is in reference to racing at the premier level not local.

We have some super strong mental master foreign riders over here at a time when American riders are unusually mentally weak.  It happens.

(except for Deegs)

Ha ha, and if the first 20 riders weren't there, the next 20 could score points.

TM

Saturday was BAD for Chase. He knows Jett isn't 100% and couldn't close the deal. Mentally, he's busted. And I say this as a big Chase fan. Jett looked like he was on a Sunday stroll while Chase was huffing/puffing and then "tucking the front" for the 11-millionth time.

It may have to do with potential skin in the game. A doctor and lawyer, win or lose, most times, walk out at the end of the day. Their client or patient may not so,,, they may have family and friends close by for support. It seems pretty rare but, there are riders that didn't make it home. Just an observation.

With the benefit of hindsight and the evidence of the two following rounds I’m becoming more convinced that Chase’s ride in moto 2 at Hangtown, while certainly worthy of respect, was mostly an anomaly where everything fell in his favour at the same time.  The bike setup worked at that track, he had a handful of dicey moments that he managed to save, and he didn’t have to run down Jett.

Since the start of the 2023 MX season he’s crashed in over 40% of his motos. And that doesn’t include any SX crashes or SMX.  Regardless of the specific cause, there’s just simply too much empirical evidence that he can’t run at that pace reliably.

I feel for the guy - he got himself to the level in 2022 and 2023 where he could take on and win against the established champions.  He probably saw a fistful of titles in his future.  Then in the blink of an eye the level gets elevated and what worked before is now not good enough.

While it can be misleading using such a small snapshot, whenever Chase is interviewed post race he doesn’t (to me anyway) give off a strong sense of having a clear thought about what went wrong and what he might do to fix it.  I have zero insight on anything beyond that but it’s the impression that I get.

In a real profession (or other skilled career) and also in professional team sports, there is a network of people that provide education, development, guidance and leadership.  Individual sports have little or none of that.

Also in normal careers you aren’t expected to be your best at age 20-25; you are expected to learn and grow throughout your working life.  Professional sports mostly, and certainly for MX/SX, if you aren’t near or at the top of the game by your early 20’s then your window is gone. That means you need to get most of the way there while still a minor under your parent’s guidance so there is more likely to be a reliance on that into adulthood.