At the end of every year, we crunch the numbers at Racer X Online to see what the most popular stories of the year were. It’s super important to note that when we say popular, we mean the following are the MOST READ POSTS, by you, our readers, not what we deemed the most popular, or coolest or the best. That said, however, most of these probably would have received our vote, too.
Unlike last year, nothing from Silly Season ranked inside the top ten. This is mostly due to the fact that 1) Eli Tomac was one of the few to change teams (we’re still waiting on Reed) and 2) most of you already knew about that switch by the time it happened.
Also, a year after taking up two spots inside the top six due to his FIM suspension, James Stewart only comes in once on the 2015 list—ninth. Check out the remainder of the list below and remember—these are is the most popular stories based on web hits.
10. Watch Hangtown Live
The 2015 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross opener from Hangtown was ripe with intrigue. Defending 450MX champion Ken Roczen sustained a back injury prior to the event and was a big question mark entering the season. Eli Tomac was out for his first career 450 title, while Ryan Dungey was seeking his first since 2012. Meanwhile, defending 250MX Champion Jeremy Martin was left to fend off a hungry Cooper Webb, Marvin Musquin, Adam Cianciarulo and Jessy Nelson, among others. And it garnered huge numbers, as the live feed for the event ranked tenth on the most popular list for 2015.
9. James Stewart Update
This came after the Monster Energy Cup. James Stewart was only back for one race following a sixteen-month suspension before headlines once again swung in the opposite direction. After winning Red Bull Straight Rhythm in his first event back, Stewart entered the Monster Energy Cup—his first true supercross test in more than a year—looking to find the same magic he conjured up at RBSR. His night lasted less than one main event, as Stewart ran into a fallen Trey Canard and injured his wrist, which he had already tweaked in practice. With upcoming events in Bercy-Lille and the AUS-X Open, news on Stewart’s injury was released with much intrigue. Luckily for Stewart, the news was good, as the injury didn’t force him to miss anytime. On the bad side, once he got to Lille he crashed again, hurt his ankle and missed the AUS-X Open.
8. Ryan Villopoto Eleventh After Free Practice
You know the storyline here: four-time Monster Energy Supercross Champion Ryan Villopoto left a chance at history on the table to finish his career in Europe. The opening round of the 2015 FIM World Motocross Championship took place under the lights in Qatar, eight hours ahead of us on the East Coast, which meant the race took place around lunchtime and offered a chance for everyone to view his first race. The numbers were huge—just for qualifying—where Villopoto eventually finished eighth. We all know how the story ended, and now RV is free to race trucks in Baja or whatever the hell else he feels like doing—he earned it.
7. 3-on-3: Any Questions?
Our weekly 3-on-3 feature is typically pretty popular, but nothing like we saw after the black flag incident (more on that later) between Trey Canard and Chad Reed at Anaheim 2. Vital MX literally shut down. (Kidding. Although I think there servers did crash at one point.) The incident was huge news for days, and when former pros Denny Stephenson, Jason Thomas and David Pingree weighed in with their thoughts it drew huge numbers.
6. Redux: Roczen Speaks
This was a doozy. In late August, Ken Roczen’s dad, Heiko, released an interview with the German motocross magazine Cross. The internet has made the world very small, and someone on the Vital message boards immediately translated and posted the interview, which essentially blasted Ken’s RCH/Soaring Eagle/Jimmy John’s Suzuki team. The story spread like wildfire and the team, and Ken, had to do some damage control. They reached out to Jason Weigandt to get Ken’s side of the story out, and of course it was huge news.
5. Canard Statement and Injury Update
Updates on injury news are the most dreaded posts of the year. No one likes to see a rider miss significant time with injury, especially someone like Trey Canard, who has been through a ton. In Detroit, Canard landed on Jake Weimer after Weimer wasn’t able to clear a jump in the Semi race. Although it was already announced that Canard had sustained a fractured left arm, this was his first statement since the incident. Hopefully injury updates won’t rank high on the list in 2016.
4. 450 Words: More on Millsaps
Spoiler alert: The release of Davi Millsaps by Kawasaki prior to the Santa Clara round of Monster Energy Supercross takes up three of the top four stories on our list. This was huge news, and neither side was saying much due to the fear of lawsuits that may be coming down the road. After two pretty vague press releases from each side, Jason Weigandt dug deeper into the story and got numerous sources to shed some light on the situation and put together this piece.
3. Davi Millsaps Issues Statement
After the stunning initial press release from Kawasaki announcing they had released Millsaps from his contract effective immediately, Millsaps released a statement of his own, saying, in part, he “can say without equivocation that I have not violated any AMA or FIM rule or regulation.” Months later, no one really knows the entire story, and that’s probably why three different Millsaps’ stories were popular—each week we thought we’d finally find out what the heck the banned substance actually was! Maybe we’ll hear about it in a tell-all book one day.
2. Sunday Conversation: Canard, Reed and the Officials
Honestly, I’m stunned this isn’t number one. You know the back-story on this, as mentioned above. We were able to get Canard, Reed and the officials from the FIM and AMA to go on record about the incident. Instantly, the story blew up and was the biggest story we’ve ever posted online, until…
1. Monster Energy Kawasaki Terminates Davi Millsaps
…Monster Energy Kawasaki dropped this bombshell, announcing they were terminating Davi Millsaps’ contract effective immediately. This was huge. They had signed Millsaps during the off-season to replace four-time champion Ryan Villopoto and a few months later, he was being released. It was all sorts of crazy and drove the clicks on our site through the roof.
