Vital MX Pit Bits: Nashville 1

Sweet music, rough whoops, and a whole lot of stuff to check out in the newest venue on the Supercross circuit.

GuyB
4/6/2019 4:36pm
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This week's race was a first for Tennessee, and we can say that the nightlife of Nashville was a big draw for the teams...and we'd guess a bunch of fans. We had some fun on Friday night, and ran into members of a few teams.

Nissan Stadium is right across the Cumberland River from downtown, and is normally home of the Titans.

The crowds came out in force.

Supercross has been doing a lot of charity work with St. Judes, and while the theme for Minneapolis was, "This T-Shirt Saves Lives", the theme here was, "This Race Saves Lives." Ronnie Stewart worked with all his sponsors for them to give up their space for the race, so that he could bump up the size of the graphics for St. Judes at this race. Plastic, gear, and more will be auctioned off to raise money to help. Let's blast through a bunch of the bikes and gear we saw here to commemorate the event.

GEICO Honda had some really cool graphics.

Pretty much every team participated in some fashion. The Monster Energy/Yamaha Factory Racing bikes had a different look.

The Rockstar Energy Racing Husqvarna bikes were looking different.

Over at Rocky Mountain ATV-MC/KTM/WPS, they had different color graphics...

...but the seat covers were extra-cool.

Since Smartop MotoConcepts Racing does their own graphics, they had a different set of graphics for each of their bikes.

Justin Brayton took a crack at riding this week, and quickly discovered that his knee's not ready after the Seattle crash.

Ben LaMay's bike...

...and the look for Mike Alessi.

We like hanging out on Fridays at the track, when factory parts are liberally sprinkled around.

Here's how the BWR Hondas looked.

Bell had Moto 9 Flex helmets done up for the Yamalube Star Racing Yamaha guys.

Kyle Cunningham got in on the action, with a custom-painted helmet, and FXR did jerseys for all their guys. The artwork was done by patients at St. Judes.

How cool are these graphics and gear for Kevin Moranz?

While cruising the Monster Energy Kawasaki pits, we spotted these cool little vent covers that Outerwear built for them. Mostly they use them when they think there will be lots of water on the track. Luckily we dodged that bullet this weekend.

Just a little velcro strip on the inside of the shrouds provides the mounting points.

Don't you ever wish a couple sets of suspension and factory engines would show up on your doorstep?

The note on Justin Hill's tank are for his start procedure. Set the revs, elbows (wings) up, and get it into gear.

Justin Hill is also trying some grip tape on his pegs.

JGR's look for the weekend. Well, on the 250s, anyway.

Tanner Stack is making his debut this weekend. Here's a good way to make sure the parts you need don't go missing.

We may have found Austin Forkner's littlest fan at the Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki truck. Yep, his name is on the back of the jersey.

Scott Adkins was doing a field trip for his Pro MX/SX Tech school here in Nashville.

It's a number one kind of weekend here.

The killswitch setup on the Monster Energy/Yamaha Factory Racing bikes is pretty sweet.

The D.I.D. crew from Japan stopped by to visit some of their sponsored teams. We spotted them checking in with the Monster Energy Kawasaki guys.

Hmm...we also spotted a couple new pairs of Scott goggles being modeled by Austin Forkner.

Rabbit food. Well, Rabbit's doing the cooking, and getting ready to feed the JGR crew.

Phoenix Racing brought out the team rig, but Jace Owen was on the sidelines this weekend, still nursing a back that could use some more healing time.

Ken Roczen dialing in final adjustments on his Honda.

After the morning track walk, lots of mechanics were busy adding handguards, as the track was full of rocks.

Ken Roczen's bike had a freshie pipe mounted up for the weekend. Ah, that ti look.

Zach Osborne with the most recent addition to the family.

There was a bunch of new gear this weekend, including this retro Fly look.

We hadn't spotted these Thor jerseys in the wild.

TLD had some new jersey colors.

We're having a Bultaco flashback, but this is some new Leatt gear.

And lots of people had lots to say about Alpinestars new collab gear. The gear Eli Tomac and Justin Barcia were wearing was different from the off-the-shelf gear, with a different front panel that incorporated team logos.

It was hard to miss this stuff.

Oh...and the matching boots.

Austin Forkner had a fashion statement of his own this weekend.

Chase Sexton also had some a Shift color.

The track crew had held off on watering when there was rain earlier in the week, but it quickly grew dry and dusty early in the day.

Some of the biggest news of the afternoon was a big practice get-off for East points leader, Austin Forkner. The Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki crew thrashed to get his bike ready, but his knee was too sore to continue. He'll get it checked this coming week.

The whoops were a bit wild, with lots of embedded rocks, and edgy bits.

Mitchell Falk, going...
...gone...
...ow, oof!

Brandon Hartranft got bit early, too.

Martin Davalos also went down in the whoops.

The fastest qualifiers in each group? Let's do this. Chase Sexton topped the 250 time sheets, followed by...

...Martin Davalos...

...Austin Forkner...

...Justin Cooper...

...and Mitchell Oldenburg.

On the 450 side, Ken Roczen nabbed the top spot, pursued by...

...Marvin Musquin...

...Dean Wilson...

...Joey Savatgy...

...and Tyler Bowers.

Random stuff? Well, there's Mitchell Oldenburg's mechanic, Jay Burgess hanging out in the tunnel, waiting for practice to get started.

This crew couldn't decide who to root for.

This might be one of the more unusual setups we've seen to reconfigure the interior of a moto van. This allowed them to keep the bikes inside, move the seats around, and still add a mattress to sleep on.

Tyler Bowers had some sponsor love for his pits this weekend.

Justin Thompson flying the home colors in his pit area.

As the season wears on, teams find ways to amuse themselves.

Danielle Alessi, and the most recent addition to their crew.


Related:
Scott USA
Blake Baggett
Cole Seely
Dean Wilson
Eli Tomac
Joey Savatgy
Justin Bogle
Ken Roczen
Kyle Chisholm
Kyle Cunningham
Martin Davalos
Marvin Musquin
Mitchell Oldenburg
Ronnie Stewart
Tyler Bowers
Zach Osborne
Austin Forkner
Mitchell Falk
Chase Sexton
Jade Dungey
Scott Adkins
Justin Cooper
Jay Burgess
Brandon Hartranft
Justin Thompson
Danielle Alessi
Pit Bits 2019
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