Road Tripping: Feld Motorsports 2

When you see this sign, you know you're getting close...but it's actually the building behind the one you see.

As part of our Vital MX Summer Tour, the time after Budds Creek and proximity to the Feld Motorsports offices allowed us to visit with two of the crew who are in charge of the Monster Energy Supercross series; Director of Supercross, Dave Prater, and Feld Motorsports' Director of Motorsports Operations, Todd Jendro. Here's some of what we learned...

In the lobby. Yep, both Supercross and the Monster Jam are huge parts of their business.

The Feld crew meets with the FIM and AMA crew annually after Las Vegas to figure out what went right (and wrong) during the just finished season, and begin talking about what they want to do for next year. They recently took it a step further and brought in Rich Winkler from Dirt Wurx, as well as Kevin Crowther from the AMA and John Gallagher from the FIM, as well as the top Operations guys from Feld and had a Supercross Summit. They talked over rule and track changes for the upcoming 2011 season, and even things like format changes were on the table...but it's still a bit too early to say what that'll translate to for next year's racing, as they're still waiting for input from the teams.

Around the building you can find departments for sponsor sales, venue booking, product licensing, graphics and design, and video, as well as directors of the various series.

What else have they been working on? Wrapping up the books on 2010, and making sure all the numbers work. Obviously they just released their new 2011 schedule with two new venues in Dodger Stadium (which replaces one of the Anaheim rounds, where they'd stopped three times in each of the last nine seasons), and Oakland (which replaces San Francisco), so they're working with the grounds crews at each of those facilities in advance to work out the details of their visit there.

Dave Prater wears a lot of hats at Feld, but his primary role is Director of Supercross.

When we asked about expanding the schedule to the Northeast, they mentioned that one of the problems with going into that area is a lack of covered stadiums, which makes booking an event in the area risky. While we were there, however, they did mention that they're working on trying to get an event into the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, NY. They also took a crack at New York City, and the new Yankee Stadium, but deciced that the date they were working on was just a bit too close to the start of the baseball season. (Imagine being slayed by the New York press if they'd had wet weather, and the field had been anything less than immaculate for opening day.)

Curious about the FIM World Championship component to the series, we asked if we'll see a return to more international dates, and were told that we will see more international dates in the future. The current economy, as well as the soft sales of off-road bikes here in the U.S. kept them a bit restrained. The current plan is to expand more globally when the timing is right, whether to Japan, China, back to Holland, or other new international venues. They know that Supercross is a global sport, and that there are countries hungry for events.

Todd Jendro, Senior Director of Operations for Feld Motorsports. Todd gets to oversee all the various series. He mentioned that the Nuclear Cowboyz is working on their second year, taking what they learned in their inaugural season back on the road in 2011.

Of course, they caught a lot of heat during the season after Ryan Villopoto's crash at St. Louis, and some of the post-race rider comments When asked about the topic of rider safety, they were adamant that there was no one more concerned with rider safety than they are. Over the years they've developed Tuf Blocks rather than using hay, created the Asterisk Mobile Medical Unit with Doc Bodnar and Tom Carson at Asterisk, worked on safety schools and response schools on how to deal with downed riders.

They do also feel that there are some misconceptions about how the trackbuilding process works, since there's only a few days to move in 7,000 cubic yards of dirt, dealing with the elements, and working around the schedule of other events...all while trying to make it safe. They're always working to achieve a safe track.

Yep, they've got their own video department.

Another topic was how the modern four-strokes allow riders to jump things that were never intended to be jumped, especially out of corners. Before, where they would have to rail around a berm to have the speed to clear a section, now they can just grab a handful of throttle and try and separate themselves from the riders around them. It has changed the dynamic, which has also forced them to change the thinking on track designs with Dirt Wurx.

They also mentioned that they regularly talk with riders and teams, and cited the example of removing a quad jump in Houston after Chad Reed had approached them about it potentially being catastrophic if someone had come up short there. They actually delayed the program to change it into a triple before practice started.

Feld has offices around the country, for everything from the Ringling Bros. side of the business to Disney on Ice, Monster trucks, and yep, Supercross, Arenacross, Nuclear Cowboyz and more.

All in all, the trip to Feld was an interesting look in how they blur the line between sport and spectacle, and we can't wait to see what they have in store for 2011.