Posted by Jason Weigandt on Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I’ve been told that they really don’t pump oxygen into the ventilation units in Vegas, but this year I decided completed a baseline study to determine if that’s true.
My flight was supposed to get in Wednesday night at 8 p.m. but “high winds” led to a postponement, so I landed at midnight. I got to my room at 1 a.m., which is 4 a.m. eastern time. I should have been exhausted, but I was wide awake. Mind you, I fancy myself as something of an expert sleeper. You name the place, and I’ve slept there. Planes? Cars? Concerts? Races? Floors? Chairs? I can sleep anytime, any place, anywhere. I’ll put my falling asleep abilities up against anyone in the under-70 class, and I can attack in a number of ways. I can go to bed early. I can wake up late, but I can also wake up early without even setting an alarm. My skills are off the charts.
But I met my match in Vegas. I purposely did not sleep on the flight (very difficult for me but luckily I had to get through Joe Torre’s “The Yankee Years” book to prepare myself for the baseball playoffs, and that kept me from dozing.) I didn’t nap, I didn’t cheat. I was going to sleep as soon as I got to the room. But…I…could….not….fall…asleep. Vegas!
I was sharing the room with SX PR man Denny Hartwig. Denny had to wake up at 3:30 a.m. to set up a 5 a.m. press shoot with a local TV morning show. I was afraid of waking him up, but instead we ended up chatting for another hour. It was now 2 a.m., but Denny woke up 90 minutes later 100 percent ready to roll. I slept maybe 4 hours and even headed down to the track early. And I felt good all weekend, even tried to take a nap on Friday while watching the Yanks game but couldn’t fall asleep, again.
To further my study, I stayed away from the wild hijinks of the typical Vegas weekend, choosing to basically have some beers in the MGM circle bar and bench race with Matthes and his Canadian friends. I also met a cool couple from Montana named Joel and Jennifer, and I typed their names into my phone so I would actually remember them here. That was about it, bench racing and staying up late. My wife wasn’t on this trip with me so I made sure not to do anything crazier than that. I could understand staying up late during some crazy Vegas party, but just hanging out with Matthes for hours? Must be the oxygen.
This all paid off on Saturday night. I simply stayed up the whole time and headed to the airport at 4 a.m. with Denny. I got to put the sleep skills to work, finally, on the plane ride home, as the person next to me must have thought I was dead.
I probably slept a total of 10 hours during my four nights in Vegas and I felt fine. There’s your base line study.
But apparently, again, it’s not true. I found this link to help debunk the myth—apparently pumping in oxygen would create a fire hazard.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080422075254AAHrw8R
By the way, while looking for the answer to that question, I found this hilarious exchange:
Q: 4 Single girls going to Vegas...What to do?
A: WELL TAKE YOUR PILLS bring pepper spray and a knife and just enjoy yourself
When I got home, my buddy Chris immediately IMed me with “Dude, did Stewart’s bike look sick in person?”
Yes, it looked sick. Healthy sick,. Most notable is the giant hole in the side of the bike that helps cool the rear shock. I actually had to ask James’ mechanic Oscar “where is the cover for this?” There isn’t a cover—the airbox is no longer packed around the shock, so there’s room to just leave the side of the bike wide open. Could make a good hold for freestyle guys.
I was also asked if the bike sounded different with the “Tornado” exhaust, but I couldn’t tell. I had headphones on all weekend so I could listen to the sweet sound of myself.
It’s really hard to judge speed on a track this small, but James obviously was way faster then everyone else all weekend, so the bike must be working. Oh wait, James has pretty much ALWAYS been way faster than everyone else all weekend. On paper, the 2010 YZ450F is miles ahead of everything else, running the cylinder in reverse, putting the airbox in the front and the gas tank in the center makes so much sense. But Cannondale did the same thing and look how that worked out (Dirt Rider Magazine Bike of the Year in 1998. Followed by going out of business once people actually rode it). BMW has also tried to reinvent the wheel with their G450X enduro bike (which also has the air box in the front and the tank in the center) and the reviews have been, ahem, critical.
I guess at this level it comes down to more subtle things. Everyone can see a radical chassis and engine design, but it comes down to subtle effects on handling, suspension and power delivery. We’ll see how it turns out—everyone thought the aluminum framed 1997 Honda CR250 was going to dominate, but after a few months, bad news started to seep out, and I remember still seeing a lot of steel-framed 1996s at the local tracks that year. There are still fans of the 2008 CRF450R, too. Just sayin’.
Anyway Stewart had everyone covered, but from watching closely, I’d say they have some more work to do on that bike until he’s 100 percent comfortable. Once he is, though, he might totally dominate. Oh wait, James already does totally dominate.
Really impressed with Ryan Villopoto’s willingness to try. RV wasn’t even supposed to race this weekend, but he went for it. He bent his shift lever on Friday. But on Saturday, he gave it all he had. Selected the very inside starting gate. Ripped a mean practice start on the hot lap before the main. Got a good start, passed Dan Reardon and took off. Sprinted as fast and as hard as he could. James caught him and Ryan was already tired, but he even tried to pass James back and banged into him in a corner. That’s the kind of thing that impresses me about RV: he has zero intimidation. Is he as fast as Stewart? No. Was he going to win the race? No. But he tried as hard as he could. He didn’t hand it over or give it away. He tried. I really doubt any other riders, outside of Reedy, actually go to the starting line thinking “I’m going to try to beat Stewart tonight.”
Remember the last time we raced in Vegas? This is what I wrote then: “But then Ryan Villopoto started going nuts. His Seattle win looked pretty controlled, but this was 250-vintage RV. Mondo aggression, throttle like an on-off switch, head locked down—RV looked like a radio-controlled car again. And going after Stewart with zero intimidation with so much on the line? Balls, that kid has.”
I like it.
Chad Reed was actually at the track on Friday afternoon, then he left to fly to Australia Friday night. Look for him to make his Kawasaki debut next weekend Down Under. Anyway, we dialed him up for an interview on the Webcast, where he made it official that he is racing for the factory Monster/Kawi team in 2009. No separate team, he is RV’s teammate straight up. And he will be racing the nationals next year. He knows he’ll be squaring off against RV for that one, and I already can’t wait to see that.
Posted by Jason Weigandt on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
