Blogandt: That's Racing in Seattle

That’s Racing in Seattle:

We didn’t see a drop of rain in Seattle, and the two championship contenders and guaranteed race winners got beat while a rookie rider in his first race back from illness, complete with a new trainer and without his regular mechanic, wins.

Just like we expected!

It’s times like this that I wonder why I never said something like “You can’t count points for wins and seconds, because there is no guarantee Stewart and Reed will finish first and second in every race.” I get an unlimited amount of space for my own blog here and four hours every Saturday night on Supercross Live! along with occasional stints on DMXS Radio and stories in Racer X Illustrated. And yet with all of that time, I still never once threw out the idea that Stewie and Reedy might not go 1-2?

I’m still scared to play the “I bet no one thought of that” game, because I usually point out something that never happens. At Glen Helen ’07, four riders were battling for the AMA Motocross Championship and I predicted Ivan Tedesco would play a spoiler role. He crashed out of practice and didn’t even race.

I also predicted Davi Millsaps and Josh Hill would be X-factors in this year’s supercross title chase.  So I’m done in the predicting surprising things business.

By Seattle we were all resigned to the reality of Stewart and Reed racing a half of a lap ahead of everyone else. But then Ryan Villopoto ends James Stewart’s streak of winning every race he didn’t crash in. Not Carmichael. Not Reed. Villopoto. Stewart stalled his bike for what seemed like .7 seconds, and even if he hadn’t, he wasn’t going to win this one anyway. And I’m not even sure if James would have finished second, either. If Mike Alessi didn’t crash while leading, you know Mike would have made his RM-Z450 look like a LT-R450 (that’s the 50-inch-wide Suzuki motocross quad) to keep James behind him. But then again, James really likes passing Mike, so maybe that would have motivated him.

Alessi had a little mid-season lull, but when you look at how much faster and stronger he has gotten since Anaheim 1, you can see why he didn’t just skip supercross and save himself for the nationals. It’s always interesting having the Alessis around, so I’m glad he’s here. Now, Mike, just please be safe the next two weeks! We don’t want a Tortelli ’05 rode-smart-in-supercross-just-to-survive-for-outdoors-just-to-hurt-himself-testing-for-outdoors scenario.

Here’s something crazy: Chad Reed has raced in Seattle five times, and he’s been on the ground in the first turn n four of those races. In 2005, Stewart bumped Reed over a berm in the first turn. Reedy ended up finishing fourth. In 2007 Reed found himself down again in turn one and fought from last to sixth. In 2008 he got knocked off early and was able to climb back to second in dramatic fashion. And then this year, he was down in turn one again, and finished seventh. What the heck is in the first turn at Seattle? A magnet? Glue? Those spiked things you drive over on way to the rental car booth?

Chad looked a little off all day, struggling in the first practice, and also coming in second in his heat race behind Ivan Tedesco. Reed hit the deck hard in turn one —head first—so that didn’t help things. For the first two laps, he rode like a man possessed, and in fact he was on the same straight as Stewart by the end of lap one. Reed’s second lap of the race, while in traffic, was his fastest of the night (54.499). It looked like he could make a run at James, but he slowed down after that, and at the same time, Stewart started his charge. I think James waited two laps for the chaos to clear. After that, it was like Southwick or Budds Creek back in the day, James made lines where there weren’t any and passed riders at will. Like watching Jeremy McGrath coming through traffic, Stewart didn’t set people up and didn’t wait for mistakes. He just zapped riders in an instant, passing them before they realized he was there.

Reed, meanwhile, couldn’t get going. He spent found agonizing laps behind the Matt Boni/Paul Carpenter battle for 12th place. With that, you knew the champ was in trouble.

We interviewed James after the race, and I called him “Mr. Consistency” because he used a second-place finish to get the points lead. “Oh no, I don’t think I want to be known as Mr. Consistency” said James with a laugh. “I want to win.”

On Friday night at dinner, I saw Davi Millsaps’ trainer John Louch and he said, “things are going to change this weekend.” And Davi finished third. Millsaps then said on the podium that he has made a renewed commitment to putting in 100 percent, and having fun. After that, we interviewed him for the Webcast and asked him what he changed. His answer was “Nothing, really.” Wow. We also heard Honda has new engines and that’s why the boys are getting better starts. We asked Davi about the new engine and he said it’s really “just a new piston or something.” Wow.

Andrew Short finished fifth and with that looks like a near lock to finish third in the series for the second year in a row. What else is everyone saying about Andrew? Nothing.

Go back one year, now, and look: Ryan Dungey won the last two Supercrosses of 2008. He won three of the last four nationals against Villopoto. He backed down from no one at the U.S. Open while riding a 250F. He has ridden solid in every race this year, and now holds a nine-point lead heading into the final. In the long run, Dungey will be well-served if he wins this title, because it was close and he had to deal with pressure. If he won every race, it would only have proved he was fast. By winning it this way, it proves his toughness.

Last summer we had Ben Townley on our Racer X Webcast from Unadilla, and Dungey led the second moto before crashing. Townley mentioned that maybe Dungey, who had been plucked out of the amateur ranks early, needed more experience winning. Ben may have had a point. A lot of riders at Dungey’s level know what it’s like to steamroll through the ranks—guys like Villopoto, Alessi and Millsaps won race after race as kids. Dungey didn’t, so he’s had to learn to win at the highest level. Now he has figured it out—look out.

The Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki boys are trying to beat Dungey back, but his talent is tough to overcome. Ryan Morias said he spent the last nine weeks working on his sprint speed, but he still didn’t quite have enough. I think Morias got hurt so much early in his career that he can’t re-wire himself into a crazy guy. Weimer looked a little tight working his way through traffic while Dungey was getting away. But Morias still had the most to worry about mentally: his fiancé was having her bachelorette party on Saturday night while Ryan was racing!

Trey Canard finally looked like the Trey Canard of 2008. He was aggressive and showed great form. The kid has the total package, he’ll be a contender outdoors and should be on fire in supercross next year. He also has one of those Snuggies “as seen on TV.” For real.

Hey, you know who must really be a good team manager? Ping. His TLD Honda team is not what you would call start-studded, but he makes the most of his guys. Chris Blose has been a revelation this year, and in Seattle Jake Moss and Jimmy Albertson didn’t back down from anyone. They finished fifth and sixth. Blose was eighth and Sean Borkenhagen was 12th—that’s darned close to four riders in the top ten.

Ping is big on the team concept, and he’s got all kinds of bets going on with his riders. No one on the team is allowed to say the word “mine” because it dilutes the team concept. If anyone says “mine,” they have to do 10 push-ups. Worse yet, Ping will stand over you yelling “Oh look at this guy! He thinks he’s tough and wants to do pushups just to show off.”

Anyway, the team got some revenge on their Seattle flight. The flight attendant picked something up off the floor and asked Ping “whose is this?” Ping then said “it’s not mine” and suddenly the flight attendant was making him do ten pushups right in the aisle of the plane!

Ping also has head-shaving bets going with everyone on the team. The TLD squad has a lot of guys who have never really been on a team before, and I think Ping’s concept really accentuates the advantages of having support—mentally, those guys are having fun and feeling the confidence of having a solid group behind them. And it shows.

Broc Hepler crashed hard on press day and rumor had it he had ruptured his spleen. But when he heard we would have him on the Webcast as a guest, he pulled the IV out of his arm and signed himself out of the hospital just to get on the show.

Not really. Broc actually looked fine by the time he got to us, and he should be ready for Salt Lake City. I say he should just stay off a bike from now until practice at Glen Helen. Broc hasn’t been able to race the opening round of an outdoor series in a long time. So here’s this week’s trivia:

What was the last year Broc Hepler actually raced in the first moto of the AMA Motocross Championship? And where did he finish in that moto?

I don’t have any prizes lined up for this, but if you really want something I can probably find a mis-matched sock or two from my dresser. Or, just include your name, social security number and credit card number in your email, and I’ll be sure to buy you something real nice.

Include Broc’s Last First Round Ride in the subject line. I want to make sure everyone knows Hepler spells it Broc and not Brock, like Sellards does. Email is jasonw@racerxonline.com

And well done to the people who got my last trivia question right. Who earned AMA #49 this year? The answer is Justin Brayton, who elected to stay with his traditional #114. Anyway, here are the smart Blogandt readers who knew the answer:

Chris Westall, Steven Farenell, Joe Hartson, Ryan Dare, Brandon Clayton and Dave Okonek.

Also had votes for Steve Boniface, Justin Sipes and Jimmy Albertson. Those boys aren't #49, but Brayton did confuse everyone by running 114 again. And something went wrong for him in Seattle, he was off the pace and didn't make the main.

Okay that’s it from Seattle. By the way, this blog is 1800 words. My intern just told me it’s more like a Blong then a Blog. But I’m feeling chatty this week and I’ll post more soon (actually, we have just upgraded my the intern up to full-time status, which means I have a lot more time to spend on the blog now. Yee haw!)