What Are They Doing Different?!

No lime

You can tell basically every rider is pissed about the tracks this year. I do not think I've heard a positive comment yet. Tomacs body language in the track discussion said it all. 

My uninformed opinion is it has to be the lime. 

Maybe they could try some lemon

What a joke. Anybody want to guess how the whoops will be?

They only stopped using lime this year?

Maybe they should switch to dual sport tires for Supercross?

As the sport progresses, bikes get faster with more traction and riders get quicker. Dirt can only withstand so much…

it’s only a matter of time before they have to enforce some sort of tyre to reduce the traction and creates less damage to the track. 
 

I’ve always been against the whole tyre situation.. but this year has been ridiculous and I really do see it as the only option. 
 

id love for them to trial a certain type that’s mandatory during the SMX rounds to see how much of a difference it makes

If I get 3 ruts half that bad on any jump face I'm done for the day. These guys are unreal. The conditions have been less than ideal this year, but everyone is racing the same track.

In all seriousness, they absolutely should be using tires like this for SX.  

Lack of drought can do this

Absolutely. If there’s even one rut on a jump face, I’m avoiding it at all costs, even if that puts me in a slower line. I can’t even imagine trying to jump that jump. 

The solution is.....

Go back to 2-strokes.

Sport was better with them anyway.

I’m over rutcross. I’m ready for a 2001 baked A1 track. 

Also, fuck a rutted landing. There was a clip of Jett crossing over 3 ruts on the finish jump... hell. fuckin. no.

The jump faces get all the attention and I understand why, but most guys are still hitting the jumps and I don't feel like the racing through the rhythms is much different rutted vs hard pack. What sucks is not having hard packed bowl turns where guys can cut down at any time. Having two or three ruts in every bowl that they have to use really cuts down on the ability to pass. 

I've built a few jumps over the years and with my limited experience I'd say those jumps need to be compacted more....even when you are working with shit soil.

When soil was not ideal we would make sure the soil was slightly moist, we wanted our jumps to last so we'd compact it like crazy. We'd roll the faces using pickups and a front end loader until it was solid.

Is Dirtworx under pressure to get the track completed by Press day? Are they limited by time and budget? I'm sure they are restricted by how much time they get to spend building a jump.

Compacting a jump properly does take time and herein I believe lies the problem. They don't have the luxury of time.

My opinion - this has little to do with tires and 4 strokes. This is more of a soil, soil prep and track build issue.

Maybe some experienced track builders here can chime in.

This is what we use to build jumps and roll/compact the faces.

All we need now is a rock garden, log jumps and a gator pit.

Totally agree . The tracks are limiting the riders options for being creative . 

Wanted to post some images of track conditions from years past so we can see some comparisons..

From 2012:

From 2017:

From 2022:

It was difficult to find track conditions during main events as a lot of the shots were just of riders in the frame.
 

There definitely seems to be a trend of the tracks getting more rutted as the years have progressed. It was my understanding that lime was only used on muddier nights to keep the moisture down, not at every round. (please correct me if I’m wrong about this)
 

A member of the media should try and ask a Dirtwurx crew member their thoughts on why they think this is happening more often. 

i said this in another thread re loaders or even a decent tractor, they are just packing them with dozers and skid steers which are useless for compaction. 

As some one who worked for CAT for many years… I praise you so much for calling them a Skid Steer and not a “bobcat” 😂😂

I agree, but corners are only part of it. Go back and watch any hard pack track from the past and you’ll see guys changing lines over jumps to dive up the inside in the next corner, or simply change to take a different line to the rider they’re racing.
Very difficult to do that in rutcross, and if you do, it’s super risky. 

All SX tracks don’t need to be hard pack, homogeneous track surfaces of any type sux. They need to mix it up!

On the dunlop track walk video Broc Glover mentioned that the material used for the track was outside on monday when they received 1” plus of rain. He said when they hauled it in to the stadium tuesday it was really just slop and they had to scrape a bunch off… they are hoping it dries out more before tomorrow. 

I used to love the hoopla surrounding Supercross. Now with so many being outdoors and impacted by weather conditions, in addition to vanilla track designs and holeshot dependant, the shine is fading. I'm ready for outdoors and two 30 minute motos on mostly natural terrain and passing! I'll still will be glued to the TV watching Supercross but I know it could be so much better. At the end of the day that's life...

Well everyone was wanting to slow the tracks down. I know my lap times are slower when the track is hammered 🤷🏼‍♂️