For this week’s The List, we’ve put together the ten stories that gathered the most page views on Racer X Online in 2013—the results may surprise you.
One trend we can detect: every year this site breaks its own traffic records come January. Anaheim ends the hunger strike for fans, and we serve up an all-you-can-eat buffet of information. This Simon Cudby gallery of bike photos was just an appetizer!Bikes and riders at Anaheim? Score!
Following a win at the second race of the season in Phoenix, Justin Barcia faced a triple—literally—at round three in Anaheim and DNFed with a smashed face. We called Barcia for an update before round four in Oakland, and it was a popular piece. Unfortunately for Barcia, he would end up having a rough night in Oakland, too!
Photos from Anaheim are always popular.
Simon Cudby photo
Again, all news is big news pre-Anaheim 1, so this link with Chad Reed donning his 2013 look was well clicked. But this one isn’t just about the pre-season hype—there’s still something about Chad Reed that moves the needle. Keep reading.
Yeah, it’s a quad, but we put the headline “Crash of the Year” in the Breaking News column, so you didn’t know that when you clicked it. Suckas! And then the video itself? The dude flips his quad and rotates under the machine and still gets up to finish the race and win the overall… yeah, crash of the year. Congrats, Thomas Brown!
5. Between the Motos: Chad Reed
This Reed guy…. Matthes dialed him in amidst rumors of what bike he’d ride in 2014, and again people were very interested. Back at this time, people thought Chad might be riding a Husqvarna, so there was much to talk about.
4. Reed announces title sponsor
Reed again! This was a PR from last month announcing his re-upping with Discount Tire. Yup, a Reed PR was the fourth most popular thing we posted all year. Now, time for a rant: I run this site and every once in awhile we’ll get accused of giving “Too much coverage to media favorites like Chad Reed and James Stewart.” But is it really the media that favors Reed and Stewart? Out of the top 30 most popular stories on our site this year (based on page views), we had three about Reed, one with Stewart and zero with Ryan Villopoto. Numbers don’t lie—the fans still love, love, love to read about those guys.
It started so innocently. Fans used this link to know when and how to watch the Hangtown opener for Lucas Oil Pro Motocross. Unfortunately, the link shows you that the Hangtown 450 second motos would air nearly 48 hours after the race took place. Also, there were conflicts between cable providers and live Internet streams—overall at Hangtown the racing was great, but a lot of fans were confused by the coverage.
Chad Reed wallpapers from last year were a big hit.
Simon Cudby photo
2. MX Sports Penalties on Washougal Laser Incident
Oh, you know all about this one.
The breaking news of the passing of FMX rider Eigo Sato garnered more hits than anything we posted all year. It goes to show that in the news business, the biggest stuff is still often the saddest.
Honorable Mention: We pulled the top 30 stories of the year while piling the stats for this article, and a few other trends were noted. First, beyond just the 2013 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross TV schedule you saw above, a whole bunch of our weekly “How to Watch” features were in the top 30.
Two stories regarding the passing of Kurt Caselli were in the top 30—our first Breaking News post regarding his tragic Baja crash, and then our career retrospective, The Legacy of Kurt Caselli.
We know Reed and Stewart move the needle, but of course there’s one more name that can’t be denied. The 25th most popular story all year? Right here.
