Vital Buzz: Glen Helen 2008 2

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Ready for some post-race housekeeping following last weekend’s season-opener at Glen Helen? Good…settle down, and dig in.

Nope, Mike Alessi’s not developing a hunchback. He was carrying a hydration pack filled with water to keep him from running a quart low during the motos. It’s something he’s gotten accustomed to while training in the desert, and will continue through the hot summer months. As you can see, he cuts a hole in his jersey to route the tube through. He had also wrapped the tube with wire to prevent it from flapping around excessively. Mike was actually looking forward to the usual So. Cal. heat (as were several of the riders who scored podium spots at Glen Helen).

During the time off while healing from his broken collarbone (and he took a full eight weeks off) he stepped up his training, and said, “I’m just having a good time. As you saw, I was able to ride 100 percent all the way to the finish line, and that’s something I haven’t been able to do the last couple of years.”

In 2005, Dunlop created a series of Legends posters featuring some of the icons of motorcycle racing history. In fact, one of the David Bailey posters that they did is hanging over GuyB’s desk here in the Vital MX headquarters. Dunlop recently added an additional poster to the line for Doug Henry. What’s cool is that all of these posters were developed to benefit injured riders through the Clayton Memorial Foundation. These 19 x 26 inch posters are printed in black and white on heavy art paper. Individual posters are $29.95, and $24.95 each for multiples. If you want one for yourself, you can purchase them through the Cycle News web site at www.cyclenews.com, or by calling them at (714) 751-7433 or (800) 831-2220. The Clayton Foundation receives 100 percent of the net proceeds from these sales. We’d call that a win-win.

Dunlop also commissioned Graves Motorsports to build a custom Yamaha FZ1 that’ll be auctioned off to benefit Doug, and Road 2 Recovery will be managing the auction after this summer’s ESPN X Games. With powerplant, braking, cosmetic, and suspension upgrades, it’s visually striking and a very unique opportunity to do something cool for Doug. Look for more info soon on the Road 2 Recovery web site (www.road2recovery.com), and Dunlop’s site (www.dunlopmotorcycle.com).

Eric Sorby had a hard crash at Glen Helen in a portion of the track where access for the medical guys was tough. Though it took a bit of time to get to him, the good news is that he was up and mobile after the race. While he’s stiff and sore, he said he’d sit out Hangtown and return to the relative safety of his test rider gig with JGR MX. He was filling in for Gavin Gracyk, who was out with an ankle that he tweaked in Las Vegas.

If you believe the jungle drums (and these jungle drums are pretty detailed and fairly specific), there should be some riding gear coming from One Industries to dealers soon…though it sounds like it will be fairly limited in quantity…reportedly…allegedly.

Here we find Stephan Legrand showing off some of the Joe Bonnello stickers that he was giving to people who had donated to help out our photographer friend. If you want the latest scoop, want to donate, or see how you can get a Joe B. sticker or t-shirt of your own, check out helpjoeb.com.

BTOSports.com is now sponsoring a holeshot award at each round, like you see here with James Stewart. It was cool to hear that Mike Alessi donated the $500 that he scored for to help out Joe Bonnello. Mike almost had two holeshots, except that James Stewart snuck inside Mike in the second moto, and snatched it away. Afterwards, Mike said, “I had the jump, I was clearly like a bike-and-a-half ahead. James just pinned it right on the inside of me and I think he beat me by half a bike length, if that, to the line. But I didn’t even know he was there until he pushed me all the way to the wall. I had it, but he was aggressive, and that’s what it’s all about, and if you want it, you’re going to do whatever it takes. That’s what he did, and I wasn’t expecting it. But I’ll be ready next time to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Glen Helen has a colorful cast of characters among their flaggers. You no doubt have seen the cigar-chomping handlebar moustache guy…or the nice old lady who constantly applauds the riders as they pass by. Well, you can add this guy to the mix. He was wagging his index finger at each rider to point the way, as they’d pass through his section.

Team Atomic’s Paul Carpenter was spotted catching an Asterisk Mobile Medical unit ride out of the track on Sunday. He’s having an MRI done this week to find out what’s cooking with the injured item (we’re guessing knee, since that’s what he was clutching as he made his exit). Get well soon, Paul.

Things have been busy in David Vuillemin’s world. He recently did an interview with Steve Bruhn at Racetime.com, where he let it be known that the recent Las Vegas Supercross was his last one. He’s also been suffering from a knee injury (meniscus) ever since San Francisco this season, and is looking to have that fixed soon. We’ve also heard rumors that he’s already signed a deal with a French Kawasaki team for next season. Wherever he finally ends up, we wish the best for him.

Oh…we’ve also heard some rumors that he may be sitting out this weekend’s Hangtown National after a post Glen Helen crash. That sucks. We’ll add DV to the Get Well Soon list.

Sean Hamblin stayed up until midnight after the Glen Helen race to post his most recent blog entry, and you can check it out here. We were stoked to see Hamy’s results. We’d seen him practicing before the season, but like Sean himself, we had no idea how he’d do. Going 8-8 for seventh overall? That was amazing.

Monster had this portable VIP viewing area set up in the middle of the infield at Glen Helen. Pretty wild.

From our point of view, it looked like James Stewart sort of eased into the weekend, and was mostly looking to take stock of where he was at after several months off the bike. As he put it, “I’m just stoked to be back. For riding for three weeks, to be able to come back and get a 1-1 today…I didn’t know where I’d be at. I didn’t know how my speed was, how my race endurance was. I felt awesome out there. “

But maybe the scariest thing that James said, was, “I feel like we can improve. I feel like every week we can get better. But it was definitely a good start.” He did a pretty good job of dismantling the field at Glen Helen. If he can improve from there? Ouch.

When quizzed about the prospect of a perfect season, he wasn’t going there. “Nah, I’m not thinking about that. It’s way too early, and I’m just happy to be back.”

If we had to pick a quote of the week, it’d go to Honda Red Bull Racing’s Davi Millsaps. After the race, one of the reporters asked him based on James Stewart’s performance, how he kind of blew the field away, how do you guys chasing him view the rest of the season? “Let’s see…Bubba’s fast. What’s new? He’s always been fast, he’s always been the fastest one on the track. I try to get there; I try to work really hard to get there. Right now I’m struggling, and just came off a long Supercross season. I’m just glad to be on the podium here. If James walks away like that every weekend, it’ll be disappointing. But good for him. And hopefully I’ll get up there and watch his lines a few times. Today, you saw him one turn, and the next turn you didn’t. It’s horrible, I’m telling you. It wasn’t cool.”

Jason Lawrence scored the first moto win in the MX2 class, and in the post-race press conference, he commented on how Stroupe and Metcalfe closed up on him at the end of the moto. “Yeah, that was more mental mistakes (than being tired). After 30 minutes of just being in the lead, that plays on your mind after a while. I’d never been in that position before. It was a good opportunity, and they did get close to me, so I was happy I was able to hold on.”

About his second moto he explained, “In the second moto it wasn’t that I was so tired, I just felt so horrible in my stomach ‘cause after you do a race like that your adrenaline’s so high, and it’s hard to eat. But obviously you need to put something in your body for the other moto, so I tried to eat as much as I could, and it kind of backfired. I think I ate too much and crammed my stomach up. It hurt the whole moto, but I just needed to pass Trey to get on the podium and get a good amount of points. So I think I did good.”

He was also getting some additional motivation from the sidelines. “I know my mechanic loves guitars and I know that they give out the guitars here. Every lap all he kept telling me was, ‘Get Trey. Get Trey. Get Trey and the podium.’ It seemed like Trey was getting really tired towards the end, and I wasn’t that tired. My main problem was my stomach. I wasn’t riding all-out at all in the whole moto until four laps to go. I guess Ryan (Villopoto) went across the finish line with one second to go to cut it one lap short. Thanks for that, but we did an extra lap and it seemed like forever.”

As for Villopoto himself, he said, “The first moto didn’t go very well. I got a decent start around the first turn, and then I think Goerke went down in the second turn and I ran into him, and I think I came out in 11th. I kind of started off a little bit slow, and just wasn’t there, and you can’t do that. These guys put out a good sprint those first 20 minutes and it’s hard to catch back up.”

But the big winner of the day in MX2 was Austin Stroupe, who overcame a second moto crash while leading, to grab his first overall win as a National pro. He explained his second moto crash like this. “I definitely think Ryan was going a little bit faster than me, and he was definitely pressuring me. It was a little mistake, and I don’t think I was riding over my head, but I came down the hill and I just saw the videotape and the front wheel tucked and it threw me on my back. Luckily, I kept the bike running and I was able to maintain. It took me a couple laps to get back on, and I made a clean pass on Brett to get back to third.”

He also answered no, when asked if he knew the pass on Metcalfe was for the overall. “I knew Ryan finished fifth (in the first moto), and I was like, ‘Dungey’s gotta have this one.’ I was actually adding points in my head while I was going around the track. I just wanted to get on the podium and get around Brett because I knew me and him were going to battle for the win or Dungey was going to get it, so I was happy to be on the podium, but I came off the track and I had the win.”