There wont be one , not at least for Jett and Deegan, so thank god that one can die on the vine after round 1.
AC and JB in the booth for RDL was a breath of fresh air.
Split start was dumb.
250
Beaumer doesnt look like a 15 year old hanging on any more. Off season work has been good for him. Besting Deegan in qualification was huge, and taking 2nd, rather than pushing to catch Shimoda, was a sign of maturity we didnt see last year.
Shimoda is always just a start away from a win, or a bad start away from a 6th place finish.
Mosiman and Marchbanks have both got do-overs, and need to be solid top 5 guys every time they are on track.
With Kitchen going East, its the weakest coast , or at least it appears to be. And Deegan cant not win it.
450
With 5 past champions, 450 class is going to be crazy all year.
Sexton thrived on the 'Jett perfect season' chatter and did his work, he knows he is better than last year, and mentally he seems in a better place.
Tomac will be fuming about his heat race, and crash in the main, but he will know he has what it takes, straight of the bat for this season. Beast mode is there,he needs to fing it every week.
Jett will be wanting to reset and start again, he wasnt great in the heat, and he was almost invisible in the main, with what was basically a bad start and a tipover in the sand. Not making top 10 was huge.
Hunter was off a bit from what i expected, i know he fell in practice, but he wont be happy either.
If Shimoda hadnt won 250, that rig would have been a sombre place to go back to .
Anderson has someone to push him in his own team for the first time in ages, and it showed IMO, he has been average for a while, Prado may not be top 5 ready, but he has the speed to be.
Prado is legit, save for his whoop speed, and his first ride on a Japanese bike , with no 250 SX experience was more than impressive. 2nd in his heat, and running at the front in the main, were not on my card for him, and he will only get better . Arm pump after his crash maybe made him look worse that he was, but it was a great showing , corner speed was Tomac level.
Ferrandis needs to forget A1.
Its going to be a long season under the Rockstar Husky rig. Stew isnt going to anything better than he already has, and now he will be carrying an injury for a week or two, and its all on him.
Roczen was on it, and his bizzarre ' i wanted 2nd' interview was not as daft as it sounded, he knew he didnt have the speed to win, but 2nd (or 3rd behind either Jett/Tomac/Sexton) was a legut goal, and he made it work, and he did it coming forward, not holeshotting and hanging on.
A1 delivered, it had drama with Kitchen going AWOL, Beaumer besting Deegan in quali and neither of the pre season favourites had a good start to the season.
And this is why we race. Because anything can happen.
Wow, this was really good!
Amazing the bulk of the top ten is over 30 years old. When are all the Loretta Lynns golde boys going to take it from them?
Beaumer looked really good.
I'm glad Jett didn’t win so the perfect season talk was stopped after the first race.
Controversial take... none of them are good enough. Deegan is the only 250 guy that justifies a 450 ride based on what he has done.
All the rest have milked the 250 class rather than back themselves against the likes of Barcia and Stewart. And in SX, they are racing half the 250 class.
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If you don’t get a start you won’t walk away.
I wonder if the amateur system is broken? Training facilities? Who was the last 250 rider to move up successfully besides the Lawrences, Sexton, Plessinger, Ferrandis? I thought Justin Cooper would be better honestly. A lot have crashed and burned still in the 250s.
Alarm bells for Jett and Hunter, they looked out of sorts, Sexton the one to beat this year.
Deegan despite his crash looked like the top dog.
Nice write up. RDL continues to be clusterfuck though.
Who thought Jett would have a perfect season? That’s just foolish.
Only Jett
Great write up
Jett’s problem is in his head?
Never could have seen that coming…
It was the 'backstory' .
Whether anyone believed it, for either of them, its dead at round 1 and i couldnt be happier. And that is nothing personal against the riders.
Good read. The ppl who were saying it was a boring off season, hows that for ya? The boring off season made this race even more exciting when shit started hitting the fan quick. Everyone was caught off guard by how crazy this a1 was, and I’m here for it. That woke up everybody from their snooze, thats for sure!
RDL is now 2 racers shooting the breeze, so its a much lower bar, JB has to get used to having someone talking in his ear, AC will be doing this a long time , and he is already good enough.
The whole ' lets show random shit while bikes are on track' thing boils my piss, but that isnt their call.
Enjoyed the 'pre-show', with Weege, i dont remember seeing them do that before.
It is. What does amateur racing show, who is the fastest 3x a year? These kids have plenty of opportunities to snag their pro license and get more racing under their belt on the local circuits. But then again, they're getting 6 figure contracts thrown at them 4 years before they're even going into the pro ranks.
But back to the topic, great take OP. I felt bad for Ferrandis, but it was great to see Anderson and Roczen have a solid race and keep pace for the entire 20+2.
The real backstory was the implosion of KTM.
Crickets…
72 is looking a lot further down the road this morning.
Pit Row
Did Jett say he would have/expected/was aiming for the perfect season?
Or is this just media and fans putting words in his mouth again?
Don't forget Cole Davies
He did in fact say that in the preview shows
Completely agree, no disrespect to him but the only thing normal about this A1 was Malcolm having a spectacular crash, everything else hit the fan pretty unexpectedly
Imagine after everything this off-season Beaumer and Sexton went and put KTM on the top step in both classes, it got so close to happening
5 bikes in the top 10 in 450s from the bankrupt company!
You can't make this stuff up. It's unthinkable.
A train wreck you know is coming and can watch.
Did we watch a different race?
Shimoda - 22 years old
Beaumer - 18
Smith - 29
DiFrancesco - 19
Deegan - 19
Schock - 27
Rodriguez - 29
Davies - 17
Marchbanks - 24
Thompson - 31
I was going to mention him and forgot... what happened in the main, he missed the Deegan carnage, as can be seen on the replay, but ended up way back after looking like he was 10th-ish exiting turn 2.
He was Star's only bright moment . He will be a threat .
Had to be talking 450’s I imagine? The 250 class really isn’t on the older side of things at all outside of Laninovich and a handful of riders
All that and apparently freise got a talking to. I was counting on him to cause chaos. Luckily it wasnt needed last night.
Man, I don't know how anyone could watch that and think Anderson is sweating Prado. Got a holeshot and immediately went backwards, then held up the pack for 10 minutes, And finally crashed, which we could all see coming for a good 10 laps. He didn't make any of the progress I thought he would and looked right about where he was last year.
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