Las Vegas Supercross - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 4

Who would have expected Las Vegas Supercross to be a mudder!? It provided some great entertainment and some downright ugly moments. Check out our picks for the best and the worst below.

250:

The Good: Joey Savatgy

I figured Joey would do good in Las Vegas regardless of the track conditions considering he had to win if he wanted any shot at the 250 West title. Not only did he go out and grab the win, he nearly won the title! He needed Cooper Webb to finish 13th or worse, and at one point he was in 13th while Joey was leading. Then Cooper made a valuable pass on one rider and then Alldredge went down, putting him back into the drivers seat for the championship.  Cooper would finish 11th, securing his second consecutive 250 West title and relegating Joey back to second.  That shouldn't overshadow Joey's ride though, as he rode away from the best 250 Supercross riders in the world. Overall, he showed some great speed throughout the year and will definitely be the favorite for the title on whichever coast Mitch signed him up for in 2017.

The Bad: Track Conditions

Las Vegas is the last place any of us would expect for there to be a mud race at, but it happened. Now, I do think that the track conditions pleased us fans as there were plenty of interesting moments throughout the night. But as far as the riders go, the track conditions were horrible. Did you see them trying to get through the whoop section before the finish line? It was bad.. They were struggling hard and it claimed many of the top riders throughout the night. Mud is considered by many as the great equalizer though, and in Vegas it sure was.

The Ugly: Chris Alldredge & Tyler Bowers

These two crashes weren't televised, but VitalMX's own Michael Lindsay saw what happened and posted a pretty good description on the forum:

"On the next to final lap, Chris Alldredge got out of shape coming out of the whoops into the finish line, launched to the side and hit the manager's tower in mid-air... he landed in the flat area next to the finish line table, dropping out of the sky hard and finally falling over...

His mechanic mentioned to me at the podium that his hip had taken a huge hit when he bounced off the tower and was "jacked up"... he was taken out on a backboard...

While this was going on, there were a few people in that area trying to help Chris and his bike, and some of the team managers had started coming down from the tower when Tyler Bowers had a similar moment happen. He got away from his bike safely, but it launched off the side of the finish line jump and landed right on the head of Dan Betley from team Honda... He was laying on the ground, holding his head after the impact... The bike bounced and took out another track worker as well. The track worker was up and walking around afterwards, but with a pretty good limp and hunched over in back pain."

This is a rough deal for everyone involved. It sounds like Alldredge will most likely miss a large chunk of the Motocross Nationals as a result of his crash, and Betley along with the track worker seem to have received some minor injuries from their encounter with Bowers' bike. Just goes to show that anything, good or bad, can happen when the track is a huge mound of mud.

450:

The Good: Special Vegas Gear & Bikes

The gear companies always bring out the bling for Las Vegas Supercross. Alpinestars provided all of their riders with some blinged out Tech 10's and designed Tomac a cool one-off jersey, Thor cooked up a sick pink and yellow set for Jason Anderson, Fox had their Captain America: Civil War themed gear for Ryan Dungey and Ken Roczen, and Troy Lee Designs debuted their brand new Phantom gear. Some of the teams also had custom graphics done up for Vegas, including JGR and several privateer riders. It was a real shame that we didn't get a good look at a lot of the gear and bikes due to the weather.

The Bad: Trey Canard

We've discussed Trey a few times this year, and it's never been good. He struggled at Las Vegas with starts and crashes as per the usual. He crashed numerous times throughout the night in the muddy conditions and never looked comfortable out there... Not that you can look that comfortable when riding in mud, but still, he looked like he could crash at any moment when he was on the bike.  Honestly, I'm not sure if there's any other way I can label his season other than a disappointment. He didn't land on the podium once, and there were several rounds that he didn't even crack the top five. It's definitely not from a lack of speed but rather his terrible starts that I've mentioned way too many times. I really hope he figures out the magic technique to get some good starts before the gate drops at Hangtown in a few weeks.

The Ugly: Ken Roczen, Marvin Musquin, & Davi Millsaps DNF

When there's mud, there's bound to be some riders that don't make it to the finish line. Roczen and Musquin both went down in the slop, resulting in some muddy grips and gloves. They both pulled into the mechanics area to see if they could get cleaned up enough to go back out, but seeing as though there was no title on the line, they decided to retire. (Apparently, Roczen also hit his private bits pretty hard in the crash, which took the wind out of his sails.) Then Millsaps had a hard crash in the whoops when he tried to skim them opposed to rolling like everyone else. I hope he's alright and is able to line up at the first round of the Canadian Nationals in a little under a month.

Thanks to everyone that has kept reading the GBU since I started it around the mid-point of the season, onto the great outdoors!

4 comments

View replies to: Las Vegas Supercross - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Comments

The Latest