Longer Tracks

Hell last night was 41 second lap times. Plenty of floor space. My guess is, they are saving dirt and build expense with no fans in the stands.

I am starting to notice a trend. The short, “simple” tracks have amazing racing. It definitely was very repetitive but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Long difficult tracks are fun to watch but the field usually spreads out too much.

There's not plenty of floor space at NRG. We walked the perimeter last night and it's tight all the way around. And there's no way to move the concrete walls that I saw. With the limited seating they could have designed a section to go up in the stands, but that's time and $$$. Given that they sold less than (my estimate) 5000 seats last night I see why they went cheaper.

Hammer 663s

Honestly I think even now more so the track is a function of keeping costs down. I recall reading about someone saying Houston needed more dirt well yeah but with minimal attendance....

Well shit Hammer beat me to it.

Everyone keeps saying these new huge stadiums should have a longer lap, yes they have a lot of seats, but the modern stadiums have small floor areas with the stands built right up to the playing surfaces. The only new stadium that Supercross goes to with a big floor is Arizona, and that’s just because the turf tray retracts.

Most of the football stadiums end up with 6 long straights and 1 short straight. The long straights take roughly 7 seconds to navigate no matter the obstacles and the short straight 3 seconds for a lap time in the 45 second range.

The old multi use stadiums like Qualcomm, Angel Stadium, Astrodome, New Orleans, Fulton County, Metro dome, etc had massive floor areas when they removed the temporary seats that moved back and forth between football and baseball season.

Angel stadium normally ends up being 7-8 long straights and 1 or 2 short straights. Giving lap times in the high 50s low 60s.

I would like to find a floor area stat on which stadium has the largest usable floor area.

The only way to make the lap times longer with small floors is to slow the riders down, steeper jumps and more corners.

I disagree. The short, simple tracks where all the riders are doing the same thing creates CLOSE racing, which is different from GOOD racing. “Close” racing is watching 2-4 guys stay within a second or two of each other all night, but little passing is made. It’s basically a train going around the track. “Good” racing, on the other hand, is guys passing each other in damn near every corner. Go back and watch some Carmichael/Reed/Stewart battles. Carmichael would put a block pass on Stewart, then within the next corner or two, Stewart was passing Carmichael back. This would go on for the entire main event, one pass after another, with no idea who was going to be in the lead when the checkers came out. THAT, was good racing.

Well yeah. I completely agree. I’m more comparing modern tracks. Back in the day of 2 & 4 strokes the racing was amazing and the tracks were great. They weren’t catering to the rider and teams

Now all obstacles have to be to “spec” all triples are the same distance all the whoops have a pre jump. etc....the tracks are all cookie cutter. The greatest riders in the world should have totally different obstacles, distances, etc every week. That and Modern bikes have surpassed the capability of tracks especially with limited dirt etc. The bike is no longer a variable. Holeshot devices. Starting grates (for what more “consistent” start conditions?) what a joke.

It’s a show not a sport anymore.