“On Tuesday at Comp Edge he was hauling ass,” a team manager told me yesterday. “Then today as soon as he’s on this track, he’s freaking out and asking to change everything.”
That’s Hangtown, and the opener for Lucas Oil Pro Motocross.
Monster Energy Supercross’ Anaheim 1 is ground zero for this sport, and all of that pressure and hype makes strange things happen. Months of testing at the supercross practice tracks comes unglued once riders are put to the test on the actual race track, against all of their competitors in front of all of those fans under the lights. That’s why we often see unexpected scenarios there, including three-straight seasons where the Anaheim 1 winner didn’t become the champion at year’s end.
But even Anaheim has fewer variables than Hangtown. For supercross, teams spend three months testing, for motocross, they mix in a few weeks while supercross is still going on. For supercross, the test tracks are probably 90 percent accurate to the stuff they’ll race on when the season begins. For motocross, you can’t find anything even close. So once the boys were let loose yesterday for a test session press day, the struggle became real. Riders were pulling into the mechanic’s area instantly—as soon as one lap into the first riding session—and few were logging many fast laps. This was a shakedown cruise all the way, with the incredibly rough Hangtown chop meeting suspension settings built on smoother practice tracks in Southern California, with some guessing built in.
So the reality is even Saturday will be somewhat of a guess for riders and teams. From that perspective everyone is a little under prepared, and that messes with everyone’s mental game a little bit, too.
That’s the tough end of it. But there’s a huge positive note pulling everyone through this weekend. The points are back to zero and everyone is back in contention. And while the top pros might spend 70 percent of their year working on supercross, they’ve spent much more than 50 percent of their total racing lives doing motocross. Some bike settings might be unfamiliar, but the idea of pinning it when the gates drop on a motocross track is something these guys literally grew up doing. And that kind of optimism reigned harder yesterday than the downside of needing to make more bike changes.
There’s the champion, Ryan Dungey, ready again for the challenge of being the hunted man. “I’d way rather be in that position than trying to get it back,” he says, while later adding he and his Red Bull KTM team are much further ahead with the motorcycle than they were a year ago, when the bike was all-new.
Seated next to him on the press conference stage were the riders who ranked second and third in last year’s championship. They, naturally, were optimistic, too.
“Last year was a bit of a struggle with the injury coming in here,” said Ken Roczen, who was 19th in the first moto here in 2015. “We’re off much better this year. We’ve done a bunch of testing but not too much—we found a bunch of things that I really liked and I feel like we’re in a good position. I’m definitely a lot happier, and also from everything I’ve learned I feel like I’m a lot smarter coming into this season.”
Moreover for Roczen, who grew up in Germany without much supercross riding in his life, he’s just comfortable outdoors. “Supercross is still way newer to me,” he added. “This feels a little bit more like home. I’ve had some success at this track before. I’m really looking forward to Saturday and looking forward to having a good day of racing.”
“I actually feel fine, I’m finally healthy again. I haven’t had a lot of laps in supercross so I’m just looking forward to getting racing.”
-Stewart
Justin Barcia absolutely needs this motocross campaign to turn his season around, and again he’s optimistic it will work. “That’s the plan for sure, flip the switch and start from fresh,” he said.
His team did an extra month of motocross testing after last season while prepping for a Motocross of Nations appearance, and that’s put them in a good spot. “Happy with my bike setup. I’ve been having fun and keeping it simple. Supercross was terrible for sure. Really happy to be here and be healthy. Last year was good, I was able to turn it on at the middle of the season, hopefully this year we can get it started a little earlier.”
There might not be anyone as optimistic about Hangtown as Eli Tomac, who logged one of the greatest rides ever at this track last year.
“I hope I can do that again, we’ll do our best to do that again, but that’s just when everything is working and you can have fun,” he said. “It’s a new year, new motorcycle, but at this point I think we’re competitive and we’ll do what we can to be out front. We did testing up to this last week and I’m in a comfortable spot, so I just need to make it happen.”
Last year Trey Canard and James Stewart weren’t even at Hangtown; Canard mending a broken arm, and Stewart serving a suspension. Supercross didn’t give them what they wanted this year, so the Nationals are a much-needed fresh start. Canard would like to replicate the end of the 2014 season, which concluded with a dominant overall win.
“That’s certainly the hope,” he said. “We ended really strong in ’14. Unfortunately last year I came in late and I wasn’t ready; I didn’t show a good side of myself. Now I feel good, I feel like we’ve had some good preparation and I’m looking forward to lining up. It’s nice to get a chance to start fresh here.”
“The last couple weeks have gone well with both riders,” Honda HRC team manager Dan Betley added about Canard and teammate Cole Seely. “I’m really impressed with how Cole has stepped it up; he’s been fast at all the tracks where the competition has been riding. He still needs to work on his stamina a little but I think he’s made a lot of improvements from last year. Trey has been looking fast too and is excited for a fresh start after a tough supercross season. There’s no doubt he has the speed, but we just need to get the starts dialed and I think he’ll be a consistent threat for the podium.”
Stewart’s status has been hard to predict all season. We have hardly any data from his comeback from a missed 2015 season, because he barely raced supercross at all. “From the first race at Anaheim, getting hurt, it was a struggle from there,” he said. “Seemed like every time we built some momentum something would happen. So we took the last few races off to get ready for this one. I’m just happy to be here right now.”
Stewart made it clear he’s recovered from all of those bumps and bruises from earlier in the year. “I actually feel fine, I’m finally healthy again. I haven’t had a lot of laps in supercross so I’m just looking forward to getting racing.”
Stewart’s Yoshimura Suzuki team manager Mike Webb said the real focus for James right now is finding the right set up, and just having two solid motos.
While Stewart and Canard try to reclaim lost ground, newer riders hope to grab some of their own. Jason Anderson’s breakout supercross season, with two wins, could portend to some victories outdoors, too. “For sure that’s my goal, to get a win or maybe a couple,” he said. “I just want to be solid through the whole series and see if we can be up front at the end of the year. I did well in supercross but this is a whole different deal. These last few weeks we’ve been riding in California, it’s hard to tell where you are when you’re on public tracks because everyone is out there riding. But I feel good.”
For whatever it’s worth, to my eye Anderson looked the fastest and most aggressive as soon as the riders took to the track yesterday, and was one of the first to uncork the massive Fly 150 jump. Hard to tell if that means anything, though.
Even harder to tell anything about is his Rockstar Energy Racing Husqvarna teammate Christophe Pourcel, forever a mystery. I asked Christophe quickly if he’s ready and healed up from injuries that knocked him out of the last few supercross races.
“We’ll see,” he said.
Anderson followed with, “Hey, you know what this guy says when he gets those fast laps in qualifying? He says he got lucky.”
Pourcel could only chuckle a bit, revealing nothing more about his speed secrets. It’s the usual thing for Pourcel to keep things close to the vest. In fact, a few years back some fans were starting to call him the Joker because of his wild card nature. Those things haven’t changed. The big difference now is that it’s round one, and everyone else is in the same scenario. They hope they’re going to do well—but before the opener, no one really knows anything for sure.