Vital MX Pit Bits: Salt Lake City 2

We were pleasantly surprised at the quantity of changes made to the track for the second round of the series. To be honest, we were expecting changes to lanes, not a major retooling of the direction, etc.

The virtual crowd in the south grandstand is growing every round. For $25 you can add yourself to the crowd, at sxsuperfan.com

Some of these are pretty funny...like the dog at the bottom right.

Since the gear, helmet. and goggle guys have been banished from the team rigs (since most of them work with multiple teams, and they're trying to prevent cross-contamination), the Bell and Fox guys have sort of set up their own compound,

Kenny has a bit of a paisley theme going on with one of his new helmets.

Here's a tip that both camps agreed on. They like using these No Sweat pads either under or over the stock padding. They've had good results with sweat management.

Coty Schock gets dialed in during the morning.

One thing we're seeing a lot of are mountain bikes in all the team rigs. There are a bunch of world-class trails here, and guys are taking advantage of them between rounds.

Three things here. 1. Malcolm Stewart has some incredible whoop speed. 2. He was also in some gear that we hadn't seen him in before...but it was actually an older color that he never got to wear last year while he was injured. 3. He was sporting some of the new Scott Prospect Gold Edition goggles.

Justin Starling is the lone East rider for the AJE Motorsports/Gas Monkey Energy squad.

$We chatted with Jeremy Albrecht for a while, talking about their lineup for this series, and the upcoming outdoor series. Unfortunately, they've run into some trouble early in the seven-race stretch here, with a fractured hand for Broc Tickle in the first practice session last Sunday; and a really sore ankle for Fredrik Noren. Luckily, they have some contacts in the area for training and rehab, and both guys are getting attended to.$

Jade Dungey trying to get ahead on graphics. Now instead of one build day a week, they get two.

After Eli's strong run last Sunday, the team was in no hurry to change anything on his bike.

Colter Ahrens wants to make sure Garrett Marchbanks can pick his pit board out of the crowd.

With a sizeable slope to the SLC pit area, the truck drivers have to do quite a bit of leveling.

Dean Wilson's bike was awaiting him on Wednesday morning.

Ah yeah, mask life. While they're inconvenient, they're also a part of what allows this series of events to go off. We've seen a number of custom efforts, using everything from team shirts to goggle bags and bandanas. Here's Bubba Pauli's version.

We like this style, since it tends to stay up pretty well.

Once again, it was pretty warm, and it looked like Justin Barcia was trying to stay on the cool side.

Sunday's 250 winner, Shane McElrath.

Hmm...it looks like Deano's mask is eating his head.

Fredrik Noren.

The Dunlop crew has their Dunlop-themed masks.

And the SmarTop | Bullfrog Spas | MotoConcepts | Honda guys have their own version for their mechanics, specific to each rider.

Kyle Peters was the top finisher among the Phoenix Racing Honda last Sunday, with a sixth-place finish.

Josh Osby's Club MX scooter.

Hope that's not a Covid crow. We're not sure what was going on with that, but it came from the inside of the Rice-Eccles stadium.

Hmm. Adam used to run the BFRC shock, but it looks like he's switched to a stock body and A-Kit internals.

Speaking of Adam, he got roughed up on Sunday when he got run over by Cooper Webb. When we asked how he was feeling on Wednesday morning, he said he wasn't going to lie, that he was hurting.

We spotted Adam getting an adjustment before practice.

We always like seeing teams pitch in to help each other...like when part of the Rocky Mountain ATV-MC/KTM/WPS awning got caught by a gust of wind, and blew over onto the main awning.

Coty Schock got bit by the whoops early.

But his bike did want to continue on without him.

Kevin Moranz also got in a really odd crash, and collected Wilson Fleming.

The odd part about the whoops is that they were sandwiched between two lanes, so there was no good way to opt out of them to allow faster riders to maintain their pace. Pierce Brown tried this method, but found it more like a trail ride than something useful.

Cooper Webb downloading with the team after practice.

Oof. Benny Bloss took a digger in the whoops during the final practice session. Actually, so did Webb, in almost the same spot.

We missed the shot, but it was interesting to watch Cooper stick close to Eli Tomac for a bit during practice. During one portion of the session, he and Eli were side-by-side through the whoops, and Cooper took a good long look over at him.