Besides stealing credit card info from purchases at your favorite retail store, hackers have been cutting and slicing their way through the Racer X email servers to figure out what our staff really thinks. With the annual Monster Energy Cup serving up its regular helping of new ideas for supercross, the staff idea exchange has been fast and furious the last few days. Then someone ripped the emails out and made them public. Here they are.
Chase Stallo: On Monday we asked our readers at Racer X: “Which MEC features would you like to see in supercross?” At the time of this writing, 38.9 percent don’t want to see any of the features added to the AMA Supercross Championship. Do you agree with our distinguished readers, or would you like to see some of the features added in some form to the regular season?
Jason Thomas: I am a bit torn on this. I think that most readers really enjoy supercross as it is and fear that it would be a step backwards. I think that there are ways to improve the product, but we should proceed cautiously. I am not a huge fan of the Joker Lane, personally, but I do think maybe shaking up the format could work. My main goal would be to increase the time that all of the top riders are on the track racing together. We only get the one main event, and if a couple of the stars get bad starts or caught up in a crash, we don’t get to see the battle we all hope for. Adding more main events could alleviate that.
Stallo: This may not be the popular opinion, but I really feel we should begin the transition to three ten-lap main events or something similar. Most purists probably disagree, and that’s fine—they have that right. But hear me out on this. In your typical supercross race, races that don’t have a direct result on the standings clog more than two hours of the program. No points are awarded, and 99 percent of the time the top echelon of riders advances anyway. There are occurrences where a top rider does not advance, but with heats, semis, and LCQs, it is very unlikely. We are just delaying the inevitable. Having three ten-lap main events, with the top twenty-two advancing through two heats and a LCQ, provides fans with more races that have meaning. You still get the same amount of race time, but the races have more an influence over the final standings, which in turn makes riders more inclined to give it 100 percent rather than go through the motions so they can advance. As much as I love supercross, it does have a tendency to lose some air after lap twelve of the main event. Yes, I realize there are good battles that come down to the end, but it’s not a common occurrence. I really don’t see the drawback to more relevant racing. Maybe I’m the minority on this. Steve, what do you think?
Steve Matthes: I know we're running a poll right here on this site about what you would take from the MEC to regular supercross, and truthfully, I don't care what concept wins or what Feld Motor Sports would take. Just please, for the love of god, take something! Anything!
Supercross has used the same format for a long time in terms of heat races, LCQs and twenty-lap main events. Sure the semis went away for a bit, but that actually made the racing worse (although, to be fair, I was in favor of this move at the time). There's no other sport, be it stick-and-ball or some form of racing, that hasn't made some sort of major change to its rules and/or format in the last thirty years. Yet, here supercross sits just doing the same thing year after year. Heck, the switch to four-strokes brought us bikes that are faster and more powerful than ever, and we didn't even increase the distance a standard supercross triple!
I don't want to throw out what we're doing now in supercross, but take the Joker Lane idea or the three ten-lappers and add them to four to five races a year. Start there and I'll be happy. But just please change it up.
JT: Well, for starters, I highly doubt whether or not Feld cares if you are happy with their thought process. Having said that, I do agree that some change would be cool. Minor changes are the key because no one wants to mess up a successful product. Everyone involved has worked very hard to move this series and sport in the right direction. If a negative change was made and set us back, that would be tough to swallow. I think the arenacross series has been the guinea pig for changes, as they have added a chase-type points system, inverted starts, head-to-head brackets, etc. They even have game show briefcases that determine starting lineups! So, in that sense, Feld has shown a willingness to step outside the box with their formats. I think they are still trying to perfect the concepts before they introduce anything to the big show. Hopefully that timeframe is close to arriving.
Stallo: I agree, JT, I think Feld has worked hard to make supercross even better—seventeen races live on TV again next season is a testament to that—and use Arenacross and the Monster Energy Cup to test their new ideas. And bravo to them. Instead of making wholesale changes, they continue to test their ideas to see what does and does not work. Let me reiterate: I’m not saying we do away with heats and LCQs; I just think three ten-lap mains would provide a ton of intrigue and a rider’s season would not be defined by one crash. In a sport where there are some many chances for a small mistake or mechanical malfunctions, I just hate to see a the air sucked out of a championship fight due to one crash, one DNF, or a couple bad starts. I’m not sure if it will or won't resonate with the audience, which is the main tipping point: What does the audience want? Steve, how do you think changes would go over? I don’t think they would go over well with some. Just look at the poll results for a small sample.
Matthes: Here's the thing about any changes that are made: You can always go back! There are no rules here about making a format change and sticking with it. Both of you guys have referenced the interesting arenacross changes that have been made, but you cannot bring a Howie Mandel briefcase model out and have a rider determine whether you're going to get first or last gate pick on the night.
The teams wouldn't stand for something like that. About the only thing I would take from the arenacross stuff is the chase-style format...I'm not a huge fan of that, but if Feld wanted to make the last ten races count for the title, I would be ok with that. It's not my first, second, or maybe even third choice of changes I would make, but again, it's a change.
Probably the number-one thing I would do is get some change up the tracks. Bring in more dirt, build up the outside berms, and put nets on the outside of said berms so you don’t have to worry about big berms putting riders in the stands. These things aren't going to happen, so I'll just make it easy here. I’d like to see one or some of these things pop up in supercross:
- Some races with three ten-lap main events
- Some races with the Joker Lane
- On tracks that are short, add some laps to the main event.
- Change point structure to award holeshot, heat race points, etc.
- A SuperPole qualifying contest (fans get to see top riders more times)
- Mascot races
- DJs roll a bike tire around a supercross track
- I may or may not be kidding with the previous two entries
JUST CHANGE SOMETHING. Thank you, Steve
JT: I think the bottom line here is that if something isn’t broken, why fix it? Supercross is working! Attendance numbers are up, viewership numbers are up, revenue is up; those are the facts. Those are the only key facts. Until those things drop off, there is no real urgency to change anything.
Stallo: Major League Baseball said the same for years, and then when it finally was broken, they had no idea how to fix it. I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel here, but there is nothing wrong with everyone discussing (changes or not) ways to improve. I don’t think a change has to be made now because, like you said, it’s working. And this is where I commend Feld; they are trying things out in case a change does need to be made. With or without changes, 2015 should be a solid year. I think we can all agree on that.
JT: I understand your point about baseball, but there are very, very different reasons for baseball’s decline. Comparing baseball to supercross isn’t really fair because of the difference in events (162 to 17), the insane salaries paid in baseball (no salary cap), and the brutally slow pace of baseball compared to supercross.
Stallo: I wasn’t necessarily directly comparing the two; it was more of an example. But looking at NASCAR’s recent slide in TV ratings—a more direct example—you will see that no sport is immune to a decline in viewership. I just think forward-thinking is never a bad idea. Let’s be ready if, for some reason, attendance, viewership, etc, hit a bump in the road.
What do you think? Join the conversation and leave your comments below.
