Wow. That’s about all you can say about what my buddy Billy Ursic, Matt Ware, Weege and myself all saw today. It was just a cornucopia of Moto-X talent all coming together for the greater good of helping each other and getting better. Chad Reed, Tim Ferry, Michael Byrne, Jason Thomas and some guy named Travis Pastrana all convened at Reed’s house (or as I like to call it, "The Moto Porno Palace") and just absolutely moto’d down getting ready for this weekend’s Daytona Supercross.
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Chad Reed blasts a sand berm at his home track. We were there.
First let me back up to yesterday and the fact that Billy Ursic and I were in chilly Morgantown, West Virginia, doing our final preparations before the long fifteen-hour drive to Tampa, Florida, and our home for the week, the palatial pad of one privateer hero Jason Thomas, of the DNA Energy Drink/BBMX team. We got into Billy’s truck and just like Fred Durst, we were rollin, rollin roillin our way to the Sunshine State. We passed through Mooresville, North Carolina, and reminisced about Damon Bradshaw. We went through Georgia and knelt at the altar of Ezra Lusk. And finally, fifteen hours and some Red Bulls later, we were in Florida and talking about Tim Ferry (maybe that was just me?) We will be blogging all week and sharing our adventure with you faithful readers of Racer X Online.
So back to the story. If you close your eyes and picture what it would be like to have the greatest moto playground in the history of the world, chances are when you opened them, you’d be at Chad Reed's. Two supercross tracks, an outdoor track with jumps that seem to go to the heavens, and for good measure some cows, dogs and gators. Then The Weege and Matt Ware showed up, fresh off the GNCC race, and Weege couldn’t stop talking about a guy named Mullins.
Travis Pastrana was there to get ready for the St. Louis supercross in a few weeks and the other riders have this weekend’s Daytona supercross on their minds. The guys got ready in the morning and headed out onto the top track for some warm-ups. The bottom track was going to be the battle ground today as there was a Daytona section tacked on to give the guys the feel for the weekend. We weren’t there long before disaster struck and Pastrana kinda went sideways on a table-top section and crashed. The result was a bruised something and the funniest line of the day (that’s repeatable) when Travis said he crashed on his good shoulder. We all know that he doesn’t have a good body part left so we all had a chuckle at TP’s expense. So he was out but by all accounts he was riding pretty good yesterday and just needs to work on his stamina. So do I Travis, so do I.
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Jason Thomas numberless in this pic, but number one in your heart.
The most impressive thing I saw was Reedy busting out a triple-quad-quad thing that was so big it was ridiculous. I asked Ferry if he ever did it and he just laughed. It was, to quote the kids of today, "sick."
The guys all did their motos with staggered starts to make it a bit of a chase for all of them. Thomas first, Byrne second, Ferry third and Reed last. The first time around Reed passed everyone for the win but by the end of the second moto, the big one five managed to stave off the supercross champ. It was really cool to watch the guys go back and forth and push each other and we were lucky to be there. The best parts for me was all of us just hanging around and making fun of each other and Travis telling Nitro Circus stories. Byrne had an old Australian four-stroke race from 1998 on dvd and we watched him wearing O’Neal gear with “Burner” on the back of the jersey race on an XR650 around a grass track. Reed was on a slower YZ426 and trying everything to get by him. Good times.
Then it was dinner where Ferry learned for the first time tonight that Tommy Searle was racing in America in 2009 and that Matt Ware cannot eat a thing at a Bar-B-Que place. Remember what I was saying about a moto playground? Well, tomorrow it’s onto James Stewarts house and another memorable day I’m sure. Check out pulpmx.com for a photo report as well.
