1. Surprised Dungey pulled away from Roczen?
Jason Thomas: I am torn on this one. After the way I saw Roczen progressing in recent weeks, I really thought he would be able to give Dungey a challenge, maybe even make the pass. I did think that Dungey would get the win, though, because I feel that he is the fitter of the two. That track was very challenging and tiring and I think Dungey has the edge in that scenario.
Jason Weigandt: Yes, I was. Dunge has been incredible over the last twelve months, no doubt about it. He's been the best in the game, and I’m not taking anything away from him, giving him full credit, etc. Got it. But, for every race that Dungey has won in that stretch, the Roczen camp could at least point to a small something that impaired Kenny’s performance. Kenny cased it huge in Oakland last year and then was left dealing with an ankle problem, his outdoor season was a mess with injuries, bike set-up issues and team drama, and then his starts have been bad so far this year. Basically, Dungey has been amazing, but we haven't seen he and Kenny go head-to-head in supercross it quite some time, so I still wasn't sure what would happen if a 100 percent ready Roczen got into a straight-up speed match with Dungey. Well, in Oakland, there was no doubt. Dungey proved again that he's the guy right now, no excuses and under all circumstances.
Steve Matthes: Well...yes and no. Yes, I would have been surprised if you had told me before A1 that Roczen would be a couple of seconds back of Dungey and Ryan would grow the gap to six seconds at one point. But now, after watching the first three rounds, if you told me that was going to happen, I would accept that reality. Dungey's riding so well right now, and he's got everything going for him. Often times a rider will have one or two pieces of what you need to win—whether it's starts, a great bike/team, fitness and well, speed. If you don't have all of these things, it's tough to win on a regular basis. Dungey's got all these things just rolling right now. Kenny's got a great attitude about this, he's not making excuses and he'll win. But it could be a while.
2. Is Webb in any sort of title trouble here?
Thomas: Well, sure he is. He isn't the points leader anymore so under any circumstances that is trouble. I am very confident that he is the best and fastest rider in the class so I don't think it's panic time but there is no more room for error. It's unfortunate that a mechanical problem put him in this spot but as we all know, any rung on the ladder can be the difference between winning and losing at this level. For Webb, he went from having a zero pressure situation whilst riding a three race win streak to losing the points lead and revitalizing his competition.
Weigandt: I think he's okay; there are still five races left and he's only down two points. Yeah, one more bad race and he's in big trouble, but Cooper has ridden pretty smart this year, picking his way through traffic and battles with the calm of a veteran. I'm sure he'd rather just holeshot and make it easy, but short of that, I still think he has a good chance of avoiding problem #2 and winning this. The real risk isn't even with himself. The other contenders—Savatgy, Osborne and Craig—have been throwing everything they have at Webb lately. They're trying hard! So Cooper won't win it without a fight.
Matthes: Nah, he's fine. He's caught and passed all of his competition multiple times this year and he'll be able to do it again in my opinion. But there's life now with these guys (Osborne, Savatgy and Craig) and I think they'll make Cooper's life more miserable. In the end, though, I still like him to bring this home. Then again, the Vegas round is up in the air as to how the points are going to be paid out so I suppose that's a wild card in this whole situation.
3. What should be next for James Stewart?
Thomas: That's a tough question. The trouble for James is that he is not only dealing with the concussion symptoms we know about but he is also falling further and further behind the competitive curve. Momentum builds for these riders and for any rider who has had to jump back into a series mid-string knows all too well the difficulty. So, he came in under-prepared, in my opinion, and then added a first round concussion to the mix and now is facing the prospect of sitting out even longer until he is completely ready and healthy. The complications are mounting for James. As for the question at hand, though, I am not quite sure what the best move is. If he was indeed suffering blurry vision, that means he needs to let his head heal and return to normal function. There's no way to recover from a concussion other than time and lowering the strain put on the brain and cognitive function. Neither of those are productive methods of improving fitness and supercross form. That’s a tough spot for a rider who has been forced to sit out the better part of two years already.
Weigandt: Well, now he's answered it by saying he'll take off as much time as he needs, and when you're dealing with head trauma that's the smart move. It's still very worrying for James' career, though. He missed a full year of racing and, short of jumping a dragon's back and killing some whoops at Red Bull Straight Rhythm, nothing has gone right in his return. This is just trending so badly here, and more time off while his competition keeps getting stronger and better only compounds the issue.
I'll give one more angle here: After James finally had to pull the plug on the 2015 season, he admitted he backed off a bit and tried to just live a normal life. You can spin that positively and say, "Ah he'll be refreshed, ready and renewed when he comes back to racing!" but it doesn't always work that way. Whenever I hear "got to live a normal life for a few months" it just takes me back to Damon Bradshaw, who took time off for a torn ACL in 1992, saw how nice it would be to live without the pressure of racing, and basically never got the fire back. So, yeah, I'm a little worried for James right now.
Matthes: Nothing but some serious couch time and trying to get his head right. As we all know, concussions are a huge issue in all sports and we're learning more about them all the time. Stew's hit his head a number of times now and these things tend to catch up with you after a while. Plus, he needs to get into better shape, which is very hard to do when you're on the couch, so it's a really tough situation. Trust me, I know about couching and losing your fitness. I'm practically an expert! If I'm Yoshimura Suzuki, I pull the plug on racing in the next month and then start riding, which makes it probably eight weeks until Stew can come back. Or wait until Lucas Oil Pro Motocross starts.
