Posted by Jason Weigandt on Friday, May 01, 2009
Okay okay, Kyle Chisholm is the darned Blogandt Noun of the Week. And to quote Chad Reed “Kyle Chisholm, who is that?” Seriously, as “super pumped” and crazed as we were about the prospect of Reed and Stewart keeping the flame alive for 18 weekends, I don’t think anyone, even at the height of the hype market, expected the week before the final race of the season to center around Stewart’s teammate Kyle Chisholm.
The last time we saw a lapped rider serve a role for the team as blocker came in Supercross: The Movie. I remember it well, the film premiered the weekend of the Broome-Tioga National and on Saturday night after practice, industry types filled the theater to watch this rocket launch of popularity for our sport. It ended up more akin to The Challenger. We all groaned about how unrealistic it was, at least until I saw my name at the very end of the credits and thus declared it the greatest movie ever.
But they were taking artistic liberties. A backflip just for the heck of it? A rider hired by a team to be a blocker? Pineapple on pizza tasting good? One can only suspend disbelief for so long.
And yet, there it was taking place on Saturday night in Salt Lake City, heck, Chisholm even has the same initials at once of the protagonists in the movie: KC! And this all took place after the secret service accompanied the Utah Governor, who was wearing a Honda jacket and talked about his army of CRFs at the Governor’s Mansion—he even had Andrew Short over for dinner on Friday. This is the same John Huntsman who John McCain said could be the leader of the Republican party, instead of Sarah Palin, a few weeks ago. What kind of fiction novel is this?!
Anyway, Chisholm obviously and completely tried to ruin Chad Reed’s race. I don’t know why and I won’t know the truth until Chisholm shows up at the Loretta’s beer tent in 2021, well into retirement and the keg of stale Coors Light. But even that probably won’t happen, because Kyle’s not that kind of guy, not even the Kyle of 2021. If you’re holding your breath, hopefully it’s only to avoid ingesting Swine Flu germs, because we’ll never get the truth.
In fact, Chisholm’s rep is so clean (this is the guy who, when interviewed him at Jacksonville about finally getting a weekend off of racing, said “well, I know we have off for Easter so we’ll be in Chuch on Sunday morning. After that I’ll probably go fishing!”) that no one could imagine he was acting on his own. Fingers have pointed in every direction, with a great many at San Manuel Yamaha Team Manager Larry Brooks. Wasn’t Brooks running the show at KTM when every rider within three counties of an AMA Motocross National was pulling over for Grant Langston and Ryan Hughes in 2003? Wasn’t Brooks at KTM during the most notorious of final-round championship hijinks ever, the legendary Mike-Alessi-reaching-for-the-Ivan-Tedesco’s-kill-switch-at-Glen-Helen incident?
(Granted, that move involved the Alessis, who have proven to need no help stirring up drama. For a reference, see Chad Reed boasting about his teammate’s ability to get holeshots and create havoc this weekend. You think Chad said, “Hey Mike, you think you could pull off that kill-switch thing again?”)
Anyway, we’ll never know for sure what made Kyle Chisholm do what he did—maybe in the heat of the moment, he just saw his buddy James and thought he could be a hero. I only do know two things:
A) Kyle’s incident was not the result of simply making a mistake and coming into a corner with too much momentum, as the unbelievaspin L&M press release said.
B) Kyle Chisholm is the Blogandt Noun of the Week. You want a guy creating buzz? Heck, Kyle’s black flag even made headlines in USA Today this weekend.
The forgotten loser in this debacle is Stewart, because he surely didn’t ask for and didn’t feel the need to have help. He was leading the race and, in his mind, headed to his 11th win of the season, further extending his points lead, and even furthermore, even if he had lost the battle with Reed in Salt Lake, would probably feel like he could win in Vegas and still claim the title anyway. No way James had anything to do with this, but now it all reflects, at least partially, on him now. Bummer, man.
The real winner is anyone involved with this weekend’s show—the fans, the folks selling tickets, the SPEED TV people (it’s on live) and our loyal Webcast listeners, sure to total into the double digits on a live TV night. Now, thanks to Chisholm’s gaffe, the threat of a retaliatory takeout will follow Stewart around all weekend. Do you know how many “Suzuki needs to bring Tyler Evans back for this weekend!” jokes I’ve heard this week?
Posted by Jason Weigandt on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 11:33 am
