“People think there’s something crazy special going on down here,” said Jason Anderson. “There really isn’t.”
We’re at the Baker’s Factory in Florida and we are not alone. I got the invite to go there on Tuesday, and expected to see a tight nit group. Just Ryan Dungey, Marvin Musquin and Jason Anderson, all under Aldon Baker’s watch and stopwatch. But I rolled up to a parking lot filled with white rental cars, including two minivans stuffed to the gills with equipment. Fox Racing had a crew shooting Dungey in 2017 gear. Roger DeCoster was there to check in on his troops. Dungey’s grandfather was hanging out, as was one of Aldon’s old buddies. Then I saw Michael Ford from LITPro, which is a GPS and data-tracking device mounted on the rider’s helmets. Two big wigs from Feld Motorsports, Dave Prater and Michael Prince, were there working with him to integrate LITPro into the Monster Energy Supercross TV shows (look for it soon—it will be a game changer).
Packed house! I was already afraid of interrupting three top riders on a work day. I know what it’s like when people come to visit your place of business. You’re both humans and maybe you’re even friends, so you feel the need to engage in some small talk. But it’s a workday and there’s still work to be done—my goal was to stay as far out of the fray as possible, because this is the Baker’s Factory and Aldon probably has every spare second filled with push-ups and sit-ups. What if I got into a convo with Dunge, cut into his daily pull-up regimen, and he finished all the way back in third on Saturday?
When I saw an even larger group there, I was even more worried. What kind of proprietary info was about to be passed around? Remember, no matter how close I get to these guys, I’m always “media” so everyone is afraid something might leak out. Here we had 2017 prototype Fox gear, Aldon Baker’s training secrets, and inside info on future supercross television shows right at my disposal. I was one snap of an iPhone away from exposing it all!
But everyone was cool! Top-secret stuff should have been going on, but none of it was actually being kept secret (well, except photos of the Fox gear, but you’ll see them when the 2017 catalog comes out, anyway). In fact, Ford was purposely pointing out features of the LITPro device. He stood at the center of the supercross track with an iPad, so Siri, yes, Siri, could note the lap times of each rider as soon as they hit the finish line transponder. She also tracked heart rates. There’s something very weird about hearing Siri say “Laptime, 59.1, heart rate 184” instead of telling me where I can find the closest Steak ‘n Shake.
Later, back inside the shop, Ford pulled up a track map on a lap top, with the LITPro showing the exact lines each rider took in each section on each lap. The data folks have worked well past stats like fastest lap time. They’re more interested in consistency, and figuring out why a rider did a 59.3 on one lap and a 59.1 on the next one. Well, apparently, Siri might know. Ford pulled up a graph on Anderson’s lap times and noted he was within 93 percent of the same time on all 20 laps. That’s amazing! Ford says an average weekend warrior is probably around the 50-60 percent consistency level, lap after lap. But at this level, even that seven percent matters—if Anderson could do 59.1s every lap, instead of sprinkling in a few 59.3s, it could change everything.
At this level, that’s not a fitness thing—factory riders have 20 laps in them, and Anderson’s final laps were some of his fastest. Ford pulled up Anderson’s laps, and tried to pinpoint why he got that 59.1. He noted, using the GPS data, one small difference in line selection. I’m talking small. On Anderson’s best lap, he was probably a foot further to the right in a section, entered the corner slight further outside, and exited slightly further inside. On his slowest lap, he was a little further to the left, entered on the inside, and exited on the outside. Small difference, but it was worth a few tenths. On the lap top, he was able to lay Anderson’s trajectory through that section on his fastest and slowest laps, and that one line choice alone was worth a few bike lengths. What we saw was basically the same dot you see on your Google Maps on your phone—but here there were two dots, once from Anderson’s best lap, one from his worst. The difference was a few feet, and a few tenths.
Sounds amazing, and it is. But in a big picture, this is just a higher tech way of doing what we all do. Trying to find better lines, trying to figure out a better way through each corner. All they’re doing at Baker’s is a more modern, clean, sanitized version of going riding. What kind of super secret and special stuff did I see? Honestly, the guys were just riding. They did two twenty lappers, then they did starts. But their bikes looked fresher, the track was mint, the shop was OCD level-clean. This is a supercross laboratory, but it’s still supercross, so it’s still dirt bikes. They still had to go out there on a track and put in the laps. As Anderson said, there’s really nothing special about it—they’re just doing motos! You know what? Even surrounded by data, SX execs, Roger DeCoster, practice mechanics, an army of gear guys, and the most successful trainer in the sport’s history, I realized that Jason was right. I really just saw three guys riding hard. It’s nothing special—it’s just riding with your buddies, taken to the 93rd percentile.
