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Vital MX Pit Bits: Southwick 6

If you have a taste for sand...and an inside view to everything at Southwick, you're in the right place.

64 GuyB https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/users/64/avatar/c50_110811guyb_redbud_1449985751.jpg?1449984985 https://www.vitalmx.com/community/GuyB,64/all 07/10/06 9257 3572 45650 893 2296 29285 36 1620 2 182

GuyB
7/10/2017 2:26 PM

Waiting for the riders to hit the sand.

It's always good to see Paul Buckley, who made this section of Southwick famous by shooting some legendary photos there. Having a part of a track named for you? That's great. Seeing it commemorated? That takes it up a few notches to awesome.

Southwick is maybe the only track on the circuit where the locals local knowledge translates into a serious advantage when it comes to qualifying. Ryan Dowd was seventh on the time sheets and first in the opening B practice.

Chris Canning put in two top-20 finishes in the 450 class...on his KTM 250 two-stroke.

The weekend's hardware.

Here, Masa Ito (left) and Toshiki Tomita check out the scene before qualifying. It was cool to see the side near the pits opened up to spectators this year. That gave them a bunch more viewing options, which was good; this was definitely the biggest crowd in recent memory.

The track is lined with 4x4 posts, which is where the sprinklers for the track's watering system are mounted. We were happy to see them covered with pads, but wonder how a rider would fare if they met one of those at full speed.

Michael Byrne and Blake Baggett spent a portion of press day figuring out how he was going to most effectively tape the thumb that he injured at RedBud. He didn't ride during the week before Southwick, and the break afterwards was well-timed. He mentioned that he'll see what he can do to treat it before heading to Millville in two weeks.

How sore was Blake's thumb? His hand went into this ice bag as soon as he as off the track, and he only took it out for a visit to the podium.

Bleeding brakes might just require an extra hand. But Justin Shantie does put his knee to work to compress the rear caliper. Doing the front? That requires some Twister-like contortions.

With his GP experience on sandy tracks like Lommel, Ollie Stone does all he can to keep sand out of things like the clutch lever mechanism.

If you spot this little red goodie on bikes in the pits and wonder what it is, it's a port where they drop in a tiny memory stick for logging data.

With the additional oil lines that run from the cases to the integrated oil cooler in the radiator on the Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki bikes, a little care is required for routing a protection. Ollie uses some heat shrink tubing on the lines so that he can guide the lines around the cyclinder, and to protect them from the kickstarter.

Pedro, getting ready to drop a fresh shock into Jeremy Martin's bike.

The GEICO Hondas have been using cooling fans off and on since Hangtown, and they were definitely on for the extra heat and stress of Southwick. You can also spot a bit of extra insulation on the radiator hose to minimize the heat from the exhaust.

That's a really clean peg mount/guard/peg setup on the Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki bikes.

If you watch F1 races, you'll see the mechanics use fans like these on the cars as soon as they pull into the garage. While those guys have unlimited budgets and probably have ridiculously overengineered fans, we've seen a few teams (like Monster Energy Kawasaki) doing something similar when the riders are doing start practice, or pulling into the mechanics area during practice.

The Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/KTM guys have their own version of the front caliper protectors found on the rest of the KTM bikes.

In the past, we've seen Alex Martin using +15mm pegs on his bike. Apparently he recently boosted them up another 5mm, to +20s.

If you come to the races on Friday, you'll often see that mechanics arrive with an extra piece of luggage to bring in consumable parts, like plastic, and filters, or other goodies that they'll change after testing requires a spec change.

As probably the most experienced truck driver in the MX/SX paddock, Big B has feeding the team down to a science...and they're not eating hot dogs. It looked like he had some smoked goodies, bleu cheese burgers, and more on the grill.

In the forum a few of you had asked what the Garmin 360 cameras looked like. They have front- and rear-facing lenses, and software stitches it all together. The cracked top screen? Because motocross.

Jason Anderson tried riding practice at Southwick, but after a mid-week crash, his back was too sore to race. Checking in with Team Owner, Bobby Hewitt, he said that if Jason had gotten a couple of extra days heading into the race, he'd have likely been good to go. He should be back for Millville.

Heartbreaker of the weekend? That likely goes to Justin Barcia, who ran out of gas short of the finish line in moto one while running in fourth spot.

Justin Hill had a Jon Primo handling the wrenching duties this weekend.

Over at Yamaha, Shane Drew was back handling the wrenches for Cooper Webb.

Here's another heartbreaker. Aaron Plessinger crashed out of the lead in 250 moto one, and he didn't return for moto two. An update after the race said that he didn't suffer any serious injury, but seeing a rider holding his neck, and leaving in a neck collar in scary indeed.

Whoops! Snowcrosser (and MXer) Kody Kamm hit the deck, and had an awkward meeting with Heath Harrison.

During the week, Nick Fratz-Orr makes his living as a realtor. In fact, he had to wait for a couple deals to close shortly before the High Point round so that he could go down and pick up a couple KTMs to hit the Nationals with.

Yeah, being back on the podium again was a bit emotional for Dean Wilson. It was good to see him up there, picking up a third-place overall.

When the skies opened up during the second 250 moto, many of the photographers ran for cover. Nope, Garth Milan's not scared of a little rain...

The most recent graduate of the Nick Wey School of Flagging? Davey Coombs. Yeah, he put himself in the middle of the track to help protect this Aaron Lampi when he went down during one of the motos.

If these were beignets, that would be powdered sugar. But this is Southwick, and everything gets a good coating of sand. Air hoses and a good rinsing will be a mechanic's best friend during next week's build process.

Brandon Scharer was the newest rider under the 3D Racing tent this week. With a 14-17 tally at the end of the day, he matched his season-best score at Thunder Valley. It sounds like the relationship with Nico Izzi and 3D has ended, and Nico will be going back to teaching schools.

Ryan Osborne holding up one of the wicked tasty lobstahs that Ziggy later cooked up for the crew.

MX Chiro, Steve Navarro, looking for a wrist to tape up.

Vann Martin had made the jump to the 450 class in recent rounds, but he didn't get a 450 entry submitted in time for Southwick, and had to ride his practice bike in the 250 class instead. He finished 24th overall with a 25-21 score.

Southwick may not be as wild as RedBud, but it doesn't mean they don't have their share of characters.

Shane McElrath hooked up and headed for turn one during start practice. Last year, his summer ended with a hard crash here, so it was good to see him leave the place healthy.