Blogandt: That's Racing in Jacksonville

That’s Racing from Jacksonville

So Jacksonville turned out to be an awesome race, and there’s much to report. But I must be careful with this post, because I now feel like anything I write here can and will be used against me in the court of public opinion. The world is buzzing right now after Larry Brooks laid some of the details out there in his MXA column this week. What happened between James Stewart and Chad Reed after the race?

Well, I was there watching and saw the whole thing. After the race, Stewart parked on a jump after the race and started pumping his fists to the crowd. I saw Reed ride up and grab Stewart by the back of his shoulder/neck area, and then they started talking, and, as we could all guess, Chad wasn’t there to say “Hey, I think your gear looked really cool.” For the first 13 rounds of racing, these guys have been tripping over themselves to not talk trash. They tried to let all the troubles of the past disappear. They kept saying “James is riding awesome, “or “Chad is riding great.” In fact, in St. Louis, Stewart first said, “I’m just giving these things away” and then quickly caught himself and said “But he earned it.”

Yes, somewhere along the way, they decided to not make this thing escalate this year. But we’ve gone too far and the championship is too close.

I want to clarify that although Reed may have been contact with James’ neck, it was the back of his neck, not the front, so this wasn’t an attempt to choke James or grab his throat or anything. Sorry, no choke slams off of the top of the triple onto a stack of tables for wrestling fans to get excited about. But it was a stern grab and Chad used it to get James to turn his way so they could “talk.”

Hollywood Holley and I watched this all go down and saw it for what we thought it was—two dudes hating each other in the midst of a tense championship fight. Windham and Reed sure weren’t nice to each other down the stretch last year, either, and now you see the guys talking like they’re old friends. So, Jim and I asked James and Chad what they were talking about during our post-race interviews. Chad first started with “Hey, I just congratulated him on a good race,” but we knew that wasn’t true, so we said “Oh c’mon Chad” and got him to speak some more. If anyone paid for the Supercross Live! presented by Parts Unlimited Webcast, it’s worth a listen to the archive just to hear the post-race interviews.

Chad caved and said he told James he can understand guys running it into each other in corners, but crossing over in the air is dangerous, and if James wants to do that, and put people in the hospital like he did to his teammate (Byrner, who went down and down hard in the Daytona first-turn crash), then he knows that’s how the game is going to be played, and the next time it happens he will put James into Row F.

He basically repeated the same thoughts in his Monday Conversation on this site.

So those were some pretty heated words. We asked Stewart next, and he joked through the whole thing and talked about how he invited Chad to dinner, and if anyone wanted to come and join them for reservations at 7:30 p.m., they could. Things got even crazier when Ricky Carmichael stopped by the booth (!), so we slapped a headset on him and had him talk to James. They started joking about some of the Aldon Baker Sunday training tips—ten minutes of yoga in the morning and some Mona Vie.

It was a surreal moment for 100 reasons, from having Ricky back at a supercross and interviewing James for the Webcast, to hearing some actual hints of what the Aldon training program is really like, to sorting through the post-race fracas with Chad and James.

There may be more to sort through. If there are rules against one rider contacting another after the race, well, I saw Chad grab James. That’s all I know.

What a great race between these two, but what an odd race, too. It really looked to me that James simply didn’t want to pass Chad early on. After the start straight, James would go outside through the second turn, carry a ton of speed and dart back to the inside of Chad. But instead of making the pass he would, OMG people, NOT scrub the triple. I hope someone got a photo of this, because it must have been the first time in James Stewart’s career that he jumped something with his bike straight up and down. It looked like he chose not to make a pass there. James said he eventually ran out of tear-offs, so on lap 13, when he finally did decide to make the pass, he of course just used the same line and of course scrubbed it and of course went right by. Then Reed got him back so James used the same line again, scrubbed it again, and passed him again. What took so darned long?

I can only wonder why he didn’t just go for the kill early and get the heck out of there. Sitting behind Chad and battling him for 10 laps is a dangerous game—if they had bumped wheels in a corner, and James went down, the championship would have been over. So why take the risk? Was he “toying” with him like he did to Ricky Carmichael in Toronto a few years ago? Trying to prove a point?  Maybe he was trying to pressure him into a mistake in the hopes of maybe costing Chad some points. RC told us, though, that such a move is pointless because Reed will never, ever get pushed out of his comfort zone, and when the heat is really on, Chad isn’t afraid to back off the throttle (to which I say, when was the last time you have heard the term “not afraid to back off the throttle?”).

Watch the TV show and you’ll hear Ricky pick up on James eventually running Chad high in places. He stopped on the inside of the right-hander nearing the mechanics area. He took him to the tuff bloxx after he scrubbed the triple and made the pass the second time. And RC was in the TV booth, reduced to saying “James is trying to take him out!”

With five laps to go, you saw Reed put in one more real effort, one more real hard lap to try to get back to James. He couldn’t quite match James in the corner leading to the finish, though, and once he made a mistake there James pulled away and that was it.

Now, you know who was riding dangerously? Jason Lawrence, who 100 percent totally and completely took Broc Hepler out. Ruined his own night, too. WHY WHY WHY?

Hepler tangled with Short out of the gate and entered turn one in dead last. He must have snuck to the inside in turn one, because somehow Hep was into the top five by lap two. Then he passed J-Law in the turn after the triple where Stewart refused to scrub earlier. Hepler was on the inside, Lawrence was on the outside, and Hepler made the pass and went to the tuff blocks, because that’s where the rut led him. Hepler is a smiling assassin like Short—he will play dirty at times—but this was just a pass. But for some reason, in the very next corner, Lawrence to go all Sorby on him. He squared Hepler up, dumped the clutch and literally rammed Broc. Hepler went flying off the track and Lawrence went down. Better yet, I saw some photos and I believe this is first, there was slight helmet-to-helmet contact between the two during the crash. They were in fourth and fifth on the third lap of the race! WHY RUIN IT?  Later, Lawrence pulled off the track and then Hepler crashed again—I think Broc is averaging two crashes per main event, so this kept that average up.

Anyway, now I have heard that Lawrence is headed back to the Lites class for the final three races of the year. He already has a 250F, apparently, because he gave one to Tyler Wharton. Wharton got a good start on it in his heat race, but he crashed in the main and finished 19th.  

By the way, now that Sorby is finished racing (I think) can we coin the term “pulling a Sorby” and just use it forever in his memory when a guy starts taking people out for no reason?

At the end of the 450 main, there were only 15 bikes still running, as Lawrence, Paul Carpenter, Josh Grant (crash), Davi Millsaps (sick) and Matt Boni weren’t running when the race was over. Over the years, I’ve heard Team Managers suggest lapped riders pull off the track once they go a lap down—it almost worked out that way here.

Ivan Tedesco is struggling this year, still searching for his first podium. But no one can accuse IT of not trying, in fact, he showed a few crazy speed bursts throughout the night. He and Josh Grant crashed together in the main, ending JG’s night and putting IT back to 13th. But in his heat race, Tedesco nearly passed Stewart three times on the first lap! I hope this guy figures it out-he tries hard and he’s a cool guy.

As for JG, I’ve heard he’s out for the rest of supercross now due to that crash, but I’ve heard Josh was done just about every week this year, and he hasn’t missed one yet. So we’ll see come Seatttle.

Let me set the record straight: Andrew Short has a torn tricep, not bicep. Outside of the arm, not the inside. It is scientifically impossible for one of Andrew’s 24-inch pythons to tear.

For months I have been saying Josh Hill looks ready to break out, and now, finally, he’s doing it. He finished third from deep in the pack last week, and fourth from deep in the pack this time. Hill is going really fast right now—more often then not he’s the third fastest guy in practice. I don’t know if he’ll ever get a start, but he’s still pretty new at this and with some more experience, maybe he can turn that speed into results more consistently.

Poor Nick Wey missed the main again. He just made it in after surviving the battle of death with Jake Marsack and Heath Voss in Toronto, but could only snag the Racer X gas card this time. Problem for NYK is that J-Law showed up on a 450 and went fast, so now it’s hard to say equipment issues are to blame.

Ryan Villopoto showed up in Jacksonville and stopped by our Webcast. Yup, we had RC, RV and even Tim Ferry on our show over the weekend. Matthes texted me during our call to make sure I said Hi to Red for him, but I ignored it. I hold the real power here!

Anyway, did you hear that guest list? You need to subscribe, people!

In the Lites class, I owe Will Hahn some love because I wrote 250 Words all about Pourcel and Andy “Also from Kansas” Bowyer was all over me for not even mentioning Wilbur. So, I will mention him here: I saw Will doing jumping jacks on the starting line and knew he wanted it bad. He had already won his heat race and you could just tell he was going to be on it in the main. He led a bunch of laps, but like his teammate Martin Davalos at Daytona, Pourcel just wore him down. Good ride for Wilbur, though.Hey do you know who split the Hahn brothers with AMA #49 this year? If you're smart let me know jasonw@racerxonline.com

I have no idea what happened to Nico Izzi on the last lap, but whatever it was, it made him do a two-and-a-half over the triple on the last lap. Brutal crash, and I heard Izzi broke his heel so bad that he had blood in his boot when they took it off. We now have two factory riders with broken heels—why do injuries seem to travel in packs?

Broc Tickle had a shot at a podium but he pulled the trigger a little too fast while in third and went down. You have to think Broc had one heck of a speech prepared if he had made the podium again.

One more story:
 
A month before Monster Energy Supercross an FIM World Championship began, the Racer X Illustrated gang had to put together a cover image for the supercross event program. The two main riders in the series, James Stewart and Chad Reed, were switching teams and thus most old photos had them in the wrong gear, on the wrong bike, or with the wrong number. The only thing that hadn’t changed were the very riders themselves, and so the decision was made to just put headshots on the cover.

It was dangerous. You could easily have gone with the same shot last year, and how would that have looked after Stewart disappeared at round three? Anyway, the Racer X boys decided to stick with it and hope the cover still looked as relevant in April as it did in December.

So what do you think?