Ping,
I just finished reading your take on the Chad Reed/Trey Canard black flag incident in the 3 on 3 article. I think you brought some of your Ask Ping humor over to a serious situation. I agree with point 1 and 2… Trey made a mistake and Chad let his emotions get to him. The issue with your response I have is this comment “These guys make a living and fund their teams by being on the track. How stoked do you think Discount Tires is on supercross right now?” then “fans don’t get to watch him ride, and his sponsors lose their main rider.” My interruption of these comments are that you are saying rider safety should be set aside to making money and making fan/sponsors happy. What Chad Reed did was malicious and he decided to be the law at that moment. Act like a grownup and you get to stay on the track, make some $$$ and give your sponsors some exposure. There were plenty of aggressive passes that night that I loved and made for great racing. The difference was their intentions were to pass the rider and not take them out to make a point.
Now off to Bed Bath and Beyond’s website to leave a poor review on a shower head I purchased.
Laith
Laith,
Your commitment to airing your grievances and displeasures is unwavering, and that is admirable, I think. However, you are missing the point I was trying to make. I agree that Chad’s actions were wrong and that some form of penalty should have been assessed. Even Chad knows that what he did was out of line. But pulling him out of the race because they thought he was going to cause “further injury” to Trey or other riders was impulsive and wrong. I’m a big fan of a monetary penalty because at least there is a winner in the whole debacle. Do you have any idea how far $25,000 would go to help get the Asterisk Medic Unit to all the races? Or maybe give that money to injured riders who can’t afford to pay bills? Kids with cancer? There is a lot of good that could be done. Instead, every single person involved in that fiasco loses and nothing good comes from it. I don’t condone retaliatory efforts like what happened on Saturday, but we can get the same message across and do some good at the same time. Now, go light up those dust-ruffle-selling, hand-soap-pushing, low-flow-showerhead-peddling dandies over at Bed Bath and Beyond like they just waved a black flag at you. No mercy.
PING
Yo Ping!
As every moto enthusiast and casual fan knows, you broke your KTM in half after landing from a triple during the 2002 Phoenix Supercross round. Moto conspiracy theorist opined that it was due to the Krispy Kreme that opened near your home in Temecula, but that is beside the point. How hard was it for you to overcome your fear of a catastrophic mechanical failure happening again and does that fear raise its ugly head often when you ride today.
Keep on Brraaappp-on!
Hue Jasoul
Seattle, WA
Hue,
In my defense, Krispy Kreme donuts are delicious and it really is difficult to drive past when the “Hot Donuts Now” sign is illuminated. That neon siren has lured me in time and again for a dozen artery-clogging circles of dough bathed in sugary icing. I even started calling them “health rings” at one of the low points in my life to justify the habit. I’m through all that now and, despite what the tinfoil hat-wearing lunatics might say about that chilly night in the Arizona desert, it was a faulty piston that initiated the painful chain of events that left me with the world’s first KTM unicycle. It really was difficult to get my head back in the game after that. I raced for one more season, but after a lifetime of injuries packed into a ten-year career, it just seemed like the right time to get out. Does it cross my mind now? Nah, not really. Of course I’m not jumping triples anymore or charging full-throttle with thirty-nine other maniacs into a first turn that’s only wide enough for three or four of us. Well, unless there happens to be that many people wanting a hot glazed donut at Krispy Kreme and we all pull into the parking lot at the same time. If that goes down I’ll throw elbows so hard it will make the Chad Reed/Trey Canard incident at A2 look like Snuggles the fabric softener bear giving Winnie the Pooh a warm hug. I like donuts. A lot.
PING
Hey Ping,
Have you noticed that this year there are 4 Monster Energy girls on the podium vs 3 in the previous years? Any idea why they added the 4th girl? I know Monster puts down a lot of money but c’mon, it’s getting a little packed up there. At one point 2 of the girls crowded out Cooper Webb until all I could see were his hands and a trophy, like they were more important than the guy that just won the race. If I were Cooper I would have kicked that one in the shin.
Thanks
T-diddy
Mr. Diddy,
"Look, man, more is better. What’s better than a smoking-hot Monster girl? Two of them! So that means four is twice as good as two would be! Let’s do bigger logos and larger cans, and let’s bump up the caffeine levels and add some more sugar, and I want more fire in the opening ceremonies, Whoo hooo! Yeah, more fire! Then let’s get some green lasers and a few more Monster girls and one more huge logo running across the start, the finish, the podium, and the track… Wait, let’s make the entire stadium look like a giant Monster Can! Yes!” – Monster Energy marketing director, probably.
PING
Have a question for Ping? Hit him up at ping@racerxonline.com.
