Both times that my wife was pregnant, she got bad morning sickness. Bad. She hated food so much that she couldn’t even look at billboards or TV commercials for restaurants. She hated food and she hated hating food because she knew hating food was bad even though she hated it. But after a few weeks, she had something to be happy about: she lost a few pounds! That makes any woman happy. These days, she’s back at her pre-pregnancy weight, but she wonders about getting back to that morning-sickness pregnancy weight … but then realizes it’s not worth it regardless of the results.
On Saturday night in Daytona, a classic 250SX East Region battle broke out, and supercross fans got to witness a wheel-to-wheel battle that went down to the wire. It was awesome!
It helps that this particular group is deep and evenly matched, but everyone knows there was another reason for the close racing.
You couldn’t pass!
This year’s Daytona track was strange. It looked like the standard Daytona at first, but after the track walk, every rider seemed to agree that something was off. The weird S-turns, the lack of whoops and narrow sections all added up to virtually no passing. It’s Daytona, and everyone has huge respect for the venue and the event, so everyone tried to hold their tongue (except Chad Reed, of course, who in opening ceremonies said with a chuckle that he “usually” likes the track, LOL @CRtwotwo).
Unfortunately, the fears were confirmed because once the races started, we saw precious little passing. From some sources I checked with, track changes were mandated due to new Daytona SX safety policies, and that impacted the amount of space the track designers had to work with, which cut the lap times, so S-turns were added to get the lap times back up. (Daytona wants to have long laps and a long main—it’s a hallmark of the event.)
Some straights were also interrupted by turns to cut down on speeds, for safety. In fact, safety concerns mandated most of the changes for this year, and that’s fine because everyone agrees that safety is job one. But hopefully there’s a better way to address that going forward. A slower, safer track is good, but a slower, safer track that also offers passing is best. I heard there are likely going to be some changes coming, so don’t worry, the 2017 track should be better.
But the 2016 track ended up stumbling into an unintended consequence. Malcolm Stewart got the early lead in the main, with Jeremy Martin was all over him. Malcolm knew what to do on this layout—block the inside! The track didn’t offer up much to separate the riders, so Malcolm couldn’t pull away from Martin and Martin couldn’t get away from Martin Davalos, and Malcolm just used the defensive move up front to block both. So they basically stayed glued to each other. While Malcolm, Martin (Jeremy) and Martin (Davalos) battled, Justin Hill was free to actually find new lines in fourth, and he used some outsides to speed the track up and catch the trio. Once he caught up, it created a four-rider freight train, but now Hill was the caboose while the riders in front of him covered the insides.
It was follow the leader, but it was close!
Stewart was forced to go inside so much that it might have resulted in him fading. On Monday, I ran into all-time super veteran Barry Carsten, he of the unofficial record for most 125/Lites/250SX starts ever. Carsten raced during Sunday and Monday’s Ricky Carmichael Amateur Supercross.
“I watched what Malcolm did and I did the same thing in the amateur races,” he said. “I just used those insides! You had to. If he had just been able to get a little lead over Martin he could have used a few outsides, but he knew he’d get passed if it was close. But you know how much harder it is to go inside in every corner? That just wears you out. I think that’s what happened.”
The track design forced Malcolm to stick to the insides to block, that stacked everyone up behind him, which led to one of the closest battles ever. These were completely unintended consequences of a track that didn’t offer any separation. Like my wife losing a little weight due to morning sickness, the results don’t warrant anyone wanting to go back to that scenario again.
