When it come down to it, every rider, just like you and me, is a fan of the sport. It’s in their blood. At Anaheim 1, Adam Cianciarulo, was just like the rest of us—a fan. Albeit, much faster than us “normal” folk. Although AC is out for Monster Energy Supercross with a shoulder injury, he, like most of us, was intrigued with the opener. We talked with him following the race to get a racers perspective of the opener.
Racer X: You were just a spectator. What’d you see? What did you think of the track from what you saw?
Adam Cianciarulo: The track, from what I saw, it looked like a super gnarly Mini Os to me. From first to tenth it seemed like it was all a line of guys, and that’s super cool watching it. Visually it looks good, but at the same time I don’t feel like there was a lot of passing because everybody was so close. But either way, I’m off the track. But if you got a good start you were pumped on how the track was, absolutely. You see both Kenny [Roczen] and Jessy [Nelson] get the start and then the first couple laps are just hammer down. The track was definitely an easy one. I remember, 2006 I think it was, they made it too gnarly and so the next one they made it wide open straightaways. That was good. So maybe next time we’ll see super gnarly A1 ’06, Andrew Short for the W, RV 2nd.
It seemed like it was all the details. Don’t make mistakes, get your corners right; that seems like what it came down to. It wasn’t the whoops or the jumps you could really do too much.
It was Jeff Emig’s “Keys to the Race”; just get the start. Honestly, I thought [Jake] Weimer rode really well, and he didn’t get a start, and I don’t know what place he got. Just because you can not get a bad start. I had no idea who was going to win the race just because it was so open. Which is cool in a way but you just got to be good at starts.
So that’s more the track. If they change the track, guys could make passes this year?
Andrew Short’s the man, but he held off [Ryan] Dungey for a long time. Which is awesome and not taking anything away from Andrew, but you kind of see things you really normally wouldn’t on a regular track, which is cool like that to switch it up. First race, it’s either going to be too gnarly or too easy or whatever. It’s not normal that they get it just perfect. Some parity.
What do you think of Nelson winning?
I like it. He was in Florida last year. He was my replacement because I couldn't ride with Kenny outdoors. I was the video guy. I got the Instagram and the Twitter pictures and videos. He was super cool. I even tweeted a picture earlier. He texted me after I did my shoulder in Geneva, he was like, “You can come back from anything, bro.” And he took a picture of his hand with the thumb gone. I was like, dude, that’s deep. That’s super cool. I’m a Nelson fan. I think that’s rad. Other than my teammates obviously, I was really glad to see him win it.
And he got the start.
He did get the start. Those bikes and that gear combination looks pretty solid.
Did you think it was possible to have neon orange bikes and then have gear that was even brighter? I didn’t even know that color existed.
I don’t know, but it seems like Troy Lee, that team gets their looks dialed.
There was a lot of neon. Even your teammates had some bright green in the gear. It’s like the new trend. Do you know this? As a child are you especially attracted to neon?
I’m just getting to the low-cut shoes and skinnier jeans. I’m just catching up to that. It’s probably fading away by now. But us motocross guys, dude, we’re out of it.
Somebody has to give you cool stuff and tell you that it’s cool.
DC will ship me clothes, and I’ll take it and be like, oh, this is what the kids are wearing. And I’ll just put it on.
Anderson was second. That’s another guy that you were doing some work with. Is there magic dust down there? What’s the deal?
I was talking about that earlier with my buddy. Every time it seems like they just… obviously those guys are going to do good no matter what. Kenny and Jason, Kenny just won a championship. Kenny was amazing before. It just seems like it’s always so solid. I just don’t understand.
You were there and you don’t even understand.
It was the same thing that happened at the track every day. Jason goes right behind Kenny, and they finish it out that far apart ever time. And I’m like another 15 off. It was watching the same race.
Every trainer except yours is like, “Hey, you got to not do too much, you got to not overdo it.” The key is to back the guys down. They want to go too hard. But all I hear from your guy is he works you really hard. And then that seems to work. I don’t get it.
I can’t say too much, but all I can say is that he’s got it down. It’s not like, it’s been working up until this point, that’s why it’s still working. It’s a science, 100%. It’s different for all of us. Jason’s workout yesterday was different from Kenny’s. It’s all different and he looks at all of us in a completely different way. Even if we’re on the same rides, road bike rides, we’re at the track doing the same thing, it’s complicated but it works, man.
He nails it for each guy somehow.
He nails it. And there’s times where it doesn’t work, but that’s just life. It’s crazy. I don’t get it. You think of all the guys that are out there, and how just a weird day kind of it was I felt like, you just felt like if one of them doesn’t get a great start… But they just always seem to end up in a good position. I don’t get it.
As a fan, and I know you are, everyone was like, it’s so stacked, it’s so crazy, it’s so wide open. Let’s be honest, these weren’t awesome races. They were just kind of following each other around for the most part. Are you as a fan like, maybe it’s not going to be that close? Or are you like, it’s the opener, it’s really hard to say after one round?
I think you could still see the guys. Mookie crashing out of the 250 Class was a bummer for me because I feel like if he got through in a good position he would be good for the rest of the series. He’s really good at technical stuff. I was kind of bummed on that. But it seemed like you could still see the guys. Webb was super fast. He came through, crashed, and then came through again. I think he got 6th or 7th. He was solid. I think he’ll be definitely be a championship guy. Osborne was hurt. That was a gnarly heat race, by the way. I think this race you can’t base anything off the race just because it’s Anaheim 1 and because of the track. I don’t think the track is anything what… They were double-double-doubling out there. It just doesn’t happen. The dragon’s back had a rut through it to where they basically were just singling off of it. If it completely swapped next week, I would be like, oh.
So we don’t have to all say it’s over, hand the trophy to the guys that won, it’s over?
No, absolutely not. I don’t think so.
Let me ask you about a couple other guys: Plessinger, that was good.
That was solid. And like Matthes tweeted, there weren’t any rocks or logs or anything out there. He was solid. I was actually surprised. Being how tall he is and everything, it’s crazy, especially on that fast of a track. He was coming for Hill at the end too. I thought he might have got him there at the end. I was surprised. That was one of the best rides of the night, for sure. Biggest surprises.
I think so. A couple 450 guys had some bad races, like Millsaps and Tomac had crashes. How do you think you bounce back from that kind of thing? Can you just ride it off or is it really hard?
I thought about that when Tomac crashed for the second time. Every rider’s been in that position. It’s like a combination of you’re bummed you’re not working out and just kind of being kind of embarrassed. It’s almost like you don’t want to get back on the bike and keep going. But I think what Tomac has to do is realize and look ahead three races and if he podiums or wins, nobody’s going to care about Anaheim. It’s one of those things where he has to deal with it this week, but keep calm, carry on, move on, try to win races. It could all flip.
