Seattle SloppyCross

The only round of AMA Supercross that makes it's way to the Pacific NW is just a day a way. I'm excited to say that I'll be attending, and hopefully the rest of you will be able to squeeze into Qwest Field as well. The weather in Seattle can be less than favorable at times, and only the creator of the universe knows why they chose to put an un-covered stadium in a city that rarely sees the sun. But it has been dry the last two days, and the forecast only calls for a 30% chance of wetness, so it should be a good race.

Chad Reed was supposed to be absent from the Seattle round, as he's any minute away from becoming a dad. But it has just been made news that he's in for tomorrow, but is on call to leave at any moment to go be with his wife, Ellie. It'll be good to see the valiant Aussie mixing things up a bit. Good luck skippy.

Sadly, his Kawi stable-mate is going to be missing from all the remaining Supercross rounds. http://twitpic.com/1hok7u/full
Villopoto broke his tib-fib at St. Louis, and may even be missing from the National 'chip this summer. He's pretty banged up, and I know I'm not alone in saying I can't wait until he's back. Rumor has it that the Zulu Warrior, Grant Langston, might possibly pick up the vacant KX-F spot for the outdoors.

Hope everyone has a helluva time at the race, and for those that don't get to go, well that's what TV and DVR is for. Chime in on who you think is gonna take the top steps of the podium come tomorrow night. My money's on Ice Trey Canard and K-Dub for his final win of his career. So if my crystal ball is still working properly, it should be a good night for Geico Powersports Honda.

I'd love to go with the hometown kid of Josh Hill, but he's still battling rib injuries, and just the fact that he's even out there is a testament to what a trooper he really is. From Josh's Twitter: "@JosHill75 I've only got 5 more days to figure out how to not get 13th and pick up 2nd in points, goodnight." Good luck Josh, you know the N-Dub fans will have your back!

See ya'll at the racing course.

Leaving Fow Hawaii

I'm leaving for Hawaii tomorrow morning, but there is PLENTY going on in the world of moto right now.

First off, I got to ride an outdoor motocross track on Wednesday for the first time since October! Oregon has some long winters, but man did it feel good to finally hit some ruts, some bumps, some whoops, and and some jumps that don't require landing with the brakes locked up. Too bad I couldn't hold on for more than a few laps. I don't have any pictures yet, but just imagine me gooning it thru the whoops with my bows at my side and my hands on the verge of falling off. It was brutal, and I'm still feeling the effects, but it was a shit load of fun at that. Thanks to my sponsors: SPY, Dunlop, SixSixOne, Tag, Filtron, Braking USA, Sunline, Renthal and AMSOIL for making that goonability possible.

Tom Self, the guy I've been linking to about the Lead Ban, will be a "guest of honor" at the STL Supercross tonight. This guy deserves tons of kudos for the effort he's put into helping the moto industry get past this bullshit lead law, and all of it's "undesired effects." I'm not one to partake in conspiracy theories, but the Gov't has been attacking motocross since before I was even born. This just seems like a small piece to the overall plot to make sure outdoor riding areas are for the elitist, exclusionist jerks that want to hug trees and whipe their asses with leaves.

Travis Pastrana will also be riding STL tonight. He designed the track and it is rad to say the least. When the track maps were first released, STL was the one I was most excited about. Unfortunately, I won't be able to watch the race until next saturday, as I'll be on my way to the big island when the races start on SPEED. I guess unfortunate is a strong word considering I'm going to a tropical island...



KEEP IT ON 2 WHEELS TRAVIS!

N'Awleans

It's hard to go from the awesome unique track under the lights in Daytona, back to the mostly boring, small SX tracks under the domes. But nevertheless New Orleans is this weekend and it is getting interesting. Reed has an 11 point lead over Stewart. This season is coming down to the wire. Bubba has to be nearly flawless from here on out. That's a tall order, and he has somewhat of a habbit of cracking under pressure. He can pull it off, but so can Reed. It's anyones game.

Big thanks to my sponsors: SPY, Dunlop, SixSixOne, Tag, Filtron, Braking USA, Sunline, Renthal and AMSOIL

DAYTONA!

Daytona was Awesome. A real classic for sure, in both classes. Congrats to Davalos and J-Law for making some inspiring and somewhat unexpected rides. Here's some cool youtube vids just to keep it all fresh.

JOSH HILL'S HEAT RACE WIN AND SUBSEQUENT ONE-FOOTED CELEBRATION WAS SUPERB!!!

Hit the SNOOZE button

The 450 class has officially hit the SNOOZE button. James Stewart, #7, has won 7 of the last 7 rounds. Sounds pretty lucky right? Not so lucky for the fans, who can pretty much expect to see a James Stewart win, no not just a win, a runaway. It's good for James, and he is riding absolutely amazing, so I'm not going to bag on him for riding like the fastest man on the planet. I just wish he would start a lap down or something.

Reed was poised and ready to take it from Stewie in Hot-lanta, but a bad start hindered his run at the #1 spot. He's still winless this season, but he's riding better than ever, and still seems very confident. If it weren't for JBS, he would be the one I'd be complaing about for making the series kind of boring. I do think it would have been a good race, if it weren't for the gate. They had problems with the gate twice saturday night, and I was somewhat expecting them to red-flag the fo fiddy main. Josh Hill jumped the gate, which caused it to flinch, which in turn, caused Reedy and a few others to be quite a bit slower off the line.

Lucky for us fans, there's another class that races on saturday night! The 250 class is all but boring so far, on both coasts. I'll try to recap the race as much as I can:

Stroupe gets the holeshot, Pourcel is second.

Stroupe stalls bike, Poucel takes over lead.

Lemoine goes for 4th, get's a charlie horse or some shit and drops back to 7th.

Wharton slowly creeps up from the back, and gets 4th

Lemoine drops back even more, after Stroupe passes him

You get the picture. A lot happened. But the biggest hightlight, or lowlight depending on how you look at it, was Stroupe stalling after the finish line. I was very excited to see that he had nailed a solid holeshot, and I was equally bummed to see him kicking his Kawi over. That race was his for the taking.

Hopefully everyone watched the race LIVE on SPEED, and I'm just telling you what you already know.

Have you contaced your local senators and representatives about the CPSIA act yet? If you haven't, you should asap. I was at my local race saturday night, and I couldn't help but notice all the little tykes having the time of their lives. Half of the racing consisted of mini classes. Robbing those kids of their right to ride is ridiculous, and un-just.

Tom Self

ARRA- Access

Thanks for reading folks, and keep it on 2-wheels!

Good News?

Wow. Talk about a week full of bad news. First, the tragic news about Jeremy Lusk that I have already covered. Then the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) that was put forth this week, banning the sale of all ATV's and OHV's to kid's under the age of 13 with a lead content above 600ppm.

This is a true story: I had just been reading about this, and I got a hold of my dad and told him the bad news, and his exact response was "what are they going to be doing, eating them?" I thought wow, what a perfect response. I can understand some concern about matchbox cars that are glowing with radiation, but Motorcycles??? I fail to see how high lead content in brake cables is going to poison the youth riders. If someone has a good explanation for all this, I would love to hear it.

In the process of this stupid "Act" it has all but completely crippled the youth motocross market, and with LL qualifiers fast approaching, now is not the time for politics. Considering Barack Obama keeps telling me that we're in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, how does putting an entire industry out of business, virtually over night, help in any way? I'm not blaming Obama, I'm just saying, he's so sure that this is the next Depression, so why are these goons in DC robbing us like this?

Not to mention after a long week, I'm flat out broke! I'm sure I'm the only one that cares about that though.

The bad news continued in my eyes Saturday night in the marvelous city of San Diego (which, of course in German means a whale's vagina) when James led another Supercross wire to wire. This may be good news to James, his dad, and all the people that are fans of just James Stewart. To the other racers, and the fans of the sport in general, not such good news...
The track was miserably short, and one-lined. I think I could have finished a long movie in the same amount of time from opening ceremonies to the time the checkers waved in the big bike main. And I would have spent less money, and depending on what movie I watched, I probably would have seen more action.

I'm not turning my back on Reed overnight because of one race. Everyone has an off-weekend. I'm hoping that this trend doesn't continue at hot-lanta, especially because the race is live on SPEED, and we don't want to see a snoozer.

There's alot that could go on to make SX better, that wouldn't require much of anything really. Either bring back Semi's or add some type of Consolation race to the night show. That way we would get to see the guys who aren't mentioned as often, and they would get to go out there and show their skills and plug their sponsors. It would help out the guys that keep this sport going, all the while adding much needed RACE time to the night show.

Do I think any of this is going to happen? No.

If anyone has some good news out there, please, fill me in.

A sound of Bee's

After watching Houston, it started to seem like James was back, and had the blue bike dialed. After watching SF, I'm sure of it now. Even though the track was pretty ridiculous and one-lined, James was on a tear. MC's track is this weekend, and it should be pretty exciting, considering both A1 and A2 were thrillers.

What the hell is up with J-Law? I'm not gonna be like the rest of the goons on the internet and sit here and act like I know him or anything. I just want to see the kid ride! He's fast and he can make the races interesting. I really don't care what he does with his rental cars, or who he fights when he's plastered, as long as he shows up on Saturday's. I just heard he had got in a fight during the week. If that's the case, then whatever. But since he missed the race on Saturday, it raises some concerns for me...

Let's talk 2-strokes. What better way to help the average joe rider keep riding during slow economic times, than to bring back smokers? And no I'm not talking about your grandpa who has been smoking since the depression, I'm talking about the bikes that go "Braap." They are cheaper to buy, and maintain, and if you blow the top end, you don't have to give up racing for a month to recover from the empty pockets.

To push the idea even further, I've heard a few suggestions that SX should be all 2-strokes, and Outdoors can be all 4-strokes. I see plenty of advantages to this, the first being, who the hell needs a 450 thumper indoors? A 250 smoker would do just fine, and maybe even make the racing a little more exciting, since the track builders would have to switch things up a little to accomodate for the different bikes.

A 450 is more than suitable outdoors on the big hills of glen helen, or the massive step up that is Larocco's leap. Then the factories could market 2 bikes. A motocross bike and a supercross bike. We all know from going to the local tracks that there will be plenty of rich guys out there with both models.

If that idea is too drastic to ever actually become reality, how about just a 125 Junior division? That way young kids who can't afford to pump thousands of dollars into a 250f monster can somehow try to make a career by starting off in the Junior division. Just simply have one moto at each national. The only downside I see to that is that they already do WMA moto's at a lot of the rounds. But I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we miss that "sound of bees" at the nats.

Either way, something needs to be done to keep the 2-stroke from dying off all together. KTM has gained a lot of respect in my book for keeping a full lineup of 2-smokers going, and even producing a fully electric bike in 2010. That should be interesting.

A2 good to be true?

A2 was a great race and Reed rode like the man that he is. I was stoked as hell for him. His ride from that far back, on a track that one lined, was amazing.

Houston was a whole different story. James was the one who looked like he was on his game. I think he finally got that pretty Yamaha figured out. He looked like the Bubba from his championship season. Scrubbin, whippin, roostin, slidin. Just vintage Bubba shit! I was watching him, and he did not look like the same rider that was at Anameim and Phoenix. Not to mention his "James Bon Jovi" entrance was extemely bad-ass.

But seriously, back to James and his blazing race. I was surprised that no one had talked about it as much, but he finally looked confortable on the Yamaha. In the heat when he went through the on-off's to the inside and seat bounced the triple, without ever even letting off, I had to pause and rewind real fast. I had to do the same again when he was doing his little parade lap at the end of the heat, and he proceeded to throw the bike over like I hadn't seen him do since he was on a little 125 2-banger. Then a smooth one handed whip over the finish line to cap it all off. It was honestly the first time this season that I remembered that James is from a far away planet. If he can do that every weekend, then I would advise most of the other guys to start training for outdoors...

The 250 east was exciting too. I had called the winner at about 9am that morning. I knew Pourcel had it in the bag when I read that he held the track record at the Kawi test track, over Villo on a 450. I'm pretty sure Stroupe is gonna wear the crown in the end. Mark my words. As far as the #20 goes... Not lookin to hot. He's not one of my personal favorites, but he sure can ride.

That was a pretty cool weekend of racing, and was probably the most "boring" yet. It's been 4 good rounds so far.

The A2 track looks awesome! very technical, and the "outdoor motocross" section should make for good old-school racing. Huge props to the track builders for switching things up this year. S-Turns, flat corners, sand, split lanes. Diversity is key.

This photo is from www.supercrossonline.com

Desert Showdown

Different Race, Same Stuff

Phoenix was another exciting round. It's shaping up to be a very interesting season! Just like last year, there have been 4 main events, and 4 different winners. A2 might see the 5th, and 6th different winners, as Chad Reed won there last year on a technical track similar to what is in store for this weekend, and the 250 class is pretty much a crap shoot.

Wiemer would have won the 250 main, had he not gone down in the tricky sand section. I don't know if SPEED edited the show to have Erin Bates chime in about the sand section taking victims, just seconds before Jake ate dirt, but I found myself laughing at that. Dungey looked good in his new FOX gear, and Brayton and Blose continue to turn heads. Biggest surprise is the defending champs J-Law and self proclaimed, Dr. Tre. Trey went down hard in the heat, and J-Law had a hell of a night. I'm pretty confident both will win a Main before the West Coast is over.

The 450 class was kind of a snoozer if you were just watching a lap chart, as James pretty much led wire to wire. But for anyone there, or watching on TV, it was anything but a snoozer. Very similar to last year, Reed held the #7 honest the entire 20 laps. You know you were on your toes that final lap, when Reed had closed to within a half second. It was also nice to see them high-fiving after the race. Bad blood and rivalries are good for TV, and racing if you think about it, but that was a great battle and both guys rode the shit out of those scooters.

Is the good racing due to the "bad" YZ450F, or the "amazing" RMZ-450? A bunch of people are saying that Bubba just doesn't look good on the new Yamaha. I call BS. The YZ450F has won both races so far, and he's only been on the bike for about 3 months. Reed did just fine on the bike last year, and while Skippy does look light-years better than he did in '08, I don't think it's just because of the new bike, but more so the new team. James has a pretty unique set up, and it takes him a while to get things going just how he likes them. The Cobra was pointing out, over on MotoTalk, that he suspects that James is using an Auto-Clutch as well. The Yamaha also took flak, when Bubba couldn't get it restarted at A1. Anyone out there remember the MXdN's? The only score team USA threw away was the one in which James couldn't get his Kawi restarted. Maybe James just doesn't know how to restart a fallen mount. I'm not just trying to defend the Yamaha 450, or James. I just think it's to early to be pointing fingers at the bike being the difference maker. Give it time people.

J-Law is with ONE, Dungey is with FOX. It's old news now. It was just Business. GET OVER IT

A1, Yeah it's that important.

QUICK RE-CAP

Every year the SX season kicks off at the illustrious Anaheim Stadium, and this year was no different, as 45,000 fans poured in to watch Reed and Stewart do battle, as well as the very hyped J-Law vs. Dungey rivalry. But unlike many years past, A1 was actually very exciting. Josh Grant got his first 450 victory, and scored the first ever win for the JGR team. Stewart DNF'd, but Reed looked fast and the 2 were set to swap the lead a few times. J-Law crashed 2 corners into the race and took Dr. Tre down with him. J-Law was left with a dangling visor, similar to RC from a few years back. Dungey got a bad start and rode his way to the box. And the Idaho kid Jake Wiemer won the race, looking good the whole way. It was an eventful night, and not many people picked the eventual winners. I actually don't know if anyone picked Josh Grant to win the 450 main.


But you already knew all of that since all of you watched it LIVE, on Speed! No need to sit here and re-cap the race for everyone. But I think a lot of moto heads are in agreement that this was the most exciting season opener in recent history, and is hopefully a sign of things to come.

Looking Ahead

Moving on to Phoenix, where James Stewart got his only SX win of the season last year, and Jake Wiemer got his first ever win. I would put a good amount of cash on Bubba for this round. I'm sure he'll be eager to redeem himself. But after A1, who knows what to expect. For those of you doing Fantasy SX anywhere, I'd say looking back to PHX last year, Both Reed and Stewart will be fast on the Fo Fiddy's and K-Dub landed on the podium as well. Josh Hansen finished inside the top 10 in AZ last year. I'd plan on him being the dark horse this weekend, hopefully making up for his lackluster debut with H&H. But I won't throw rocks if your reluctant to put your money on Lil' Hanny.


Wiemer won last year on the 250, and there's really no reason why he won't win this weekend. That's the beauty of the Tiddler class; expect the unexpected. My money is on Dungey for the weekend, with Brayton close to the front, along with the man layin down the Law with the number one plate. Kyle Cunningham is my under dog for Phoenix, as he had a good Top-10 ride there last year.

BRAAAP BRAP

Oregon Weather prevents a lot of riding from November to March, but Normally there are a few places to ride some Arenacross. Well this year hasn't been so cool, and I got to throw a leg over a scooter for the first time in to long on Saturday. The sun came out along the Oregon Coast, and it was the most fun I've had... Well since last time I was on 2-Wheels. Going out to the sand or the local trails, or Ocotillo if your in the area, is really good for the Soul. It reminds us all of why we got into riding in the first place. Pounding out laps at the local track is always fun, but there's still nothing like hitting the sand with my old man.

Back and better than ever.

Supercross has officially begun, and now I'm back to give my "valuable" insights.

I'll be posting some cool stuff at least twice a week.

The G.O.A.T. Is No More

Suzuki announced today that RC had to drop out of the US open of supercross that was scheduled for this weekend and most likely the Bercy Supercross in France set to go next month. He was diagnosed with CFS or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome earlier this week, and was advised to take it easy. Doctors said it was most likely due to an intense training schedule on both 2 wheels and 4, and a lack of sleep while taking care of his new twins. I guess the guy was pretty busy, and his body paid the toll. This is a pretty sad story to hear being a motocross fan, knowing that the Greatest Of All Time got stuck with something so unfortunate. Being a glass half full kinda guy, I figured at least he completed his amazing career, and got to achieve all his racing goals before this happened. All I'm saying is the timing could have been alot worse. Our best goes to Ricky, and the whole Carmichael camp, hoping that things look up for RC, and he can still fulfill his car racing dreams.

Check Out Chad Reed Tearing Up The 250F on Motocross.com

Ricky Carmichael Helmet Cam Must See

If you didn't think that was cool, get some professional help.