Pastrana brought the RM-Zilla 500 for a match race with Broc Glover on a 1987 Yamaha YZ490 that Rory from Team International Airhammer found on eBay. Jeff Stanton rode a Honda CR250 with his #363 amateur digits against his old nemesis-turned-friend Damon Bradshaw, who rode a 450. The General, Ryan Sipes, also showed up on a two-stroke 300, and he was one of the most impressive guys of the whole deal. And of course the tension between old and heated minicycle rivals Villopoto and Alessi was still very palpable, at least at first anyway.

The track was stripped down and raw, with just two Arena banners and a few yellow Acerbis markers. With social-distancing measures in full effect, no spectators were supposed to be there, but when you have a group of guys with maybe 6 million combined followers on social media, people started figuring out where the Moto Fite Klub was taking place. By the time the short show was over, maybe 50 or 60 people had found their way to the site and watched from the fringes—they all kept their distance.

What they saw was a bunch of fast guys who still like to ride having a much-needed jam session of one-on-one elimination match races and the occasional backflip by you-know-who. (And when he hopped on that ’87 YZ490 and flipped it on the second try, everyone was stunned—Travis just being Travis.)

In the end, a very serious Mike Alessi held off a game Villopoto and Sipes to win the belt as first Moto Fite Klub champ. The only person to crash that I saw was (of course) Travis, but he was so happy to be out there with some of his heroes and best friends, as well as Puerto Rico teammates Windham and Sipes, it didn’t matter. There was one casualty: Ivan Tedesco. The multi-time champ had driven cross-country in a hurry to be there wasn’t feeling well at the Monday night bonfire. He still hung out for a bit, then woke up feeling awful—awful enough for old teammates RV and Weimer to call for an ambulance on Tuesday morning. Here’s hoping Ivan has gotten over whatever it was—no, it wasn’t that—and can actually take part the next time they try something like this.

So will there be another Moto Fite Klub? I was a skeptic at first—it came together in a hurry, in a secret place, with a lot of top names—but they all showed up, they all rode hard, and people loved it. In a world without much in the ways of live moto-tainment, it came at the perfect time, didn’t try to be more than just a small gathering of big dogs out to have fun, and they raised a bunch of money for charity, including Road 2 Recovery. Afterward, everyone was smiling, though no one more than #800. He was thrilled to be there, stoked to win, and seeing him and RV bench-race was worth the price of the PPV. He drove back to Florida with the first Moto Fite Klub belt and an autographed Ryan Villopoto jersey.

I hope this weekend’s other races, both NASCAR and GNCC, have the same modest success that this event did. It was a welcome diversion and a nice step back toward reality, though obviously it’s a completely new reality for everyone, everywhere. We just need to keep finding safe and smart ways to keep doing what we love.

Supercross is Back (Jason Weigandt)

Lots of rumors and talks over the last two months, but to really and totally expect supercross to really come back, with a real stadium and date in this environment? It always seemed like a tough ask. Yet, here it is. Monster Energy AMA Supercross will resume with a seven-race-in-three-weeks run, all at Salt Lake City, Utah’s Rice-Eccles Stadium. That’s May 31 through June 21, which leaves the standard weekend off gap between supercross and the expected July 4th start of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship.

You can read the Redux story we posted today for some greater details on how social distancing will work at supercross. Perhaps the biggest takeaways are this: the event is held to 900 total people, which means no spectators. Everyone coming from out of the state will have to take a COVID-19 test upon arrival in Utah, and then go through a 48-hour wait before they can race (so, everyone will have to arrive a few days in advance). That test and 48-hour wait means everyone will likely stay in Utah the whole time, because with only three days between races, there’s not enough time to leave, get tested, and get cleared. Riders don’t have to stay in one hotel, they can stay in motorhomes or even rent houses, as long and they’re in Utah and they have given the officials an address.

Feld will produce a nearly 30-page document over the weekend with all the protocols for the 900 people on site. It will be interesting to learn all the plans that teams, riders and trainers make. Do we see supercross practice tracks set up in Utah? Can you imagine how many road bike rides you’re gonna see around the area?

The bottom line is, from the start, the teams said they would like to run all 17 races. Feld and the AMA want to stick as close to the established championship format as possible. I’ve also heard from plenty of people who teams and sponsors have had to cut pay and budget during this time without racing. Getting back to racing gets people back to work. We have two weeks to learn all the details, but it’s certainly going to be interesting to see how this all works starting May 31.

FITE, SX, 500's (Matthes)

Well, they did it. The Moto Fite Klub race that was thrown together in about ten days actually went off. It was a pretty cool event and it did just what it promised to do: provide some entertainment and good racing in a time when we all needed it. Just look at our homepage here at Racer X—we were all over it! 

I thought it was pretty cool that Pastrana backflipped a YZ490. I thought Broc Glover looked pretty damn fast for a guy turning 60. I thought Damon Bradshaw was on it (did you know he's younger than Jeremy McGrath—how about that fact?), and I thought Mike Alessi breaking out a #1 jersey after he beat a bunch of guys that are years past their last race (outside of Ryan Sipes) was hilarious.

All in all a good event, and I have no doubt that we'll see a Fite Club Part 2 at some point. This is a format that works, and I'm glad the guys made a bit of money, Road2Recovery got a bunch of money from the eBay auction, and that everyone had fun (outside of Ivan Tedesco, who had a seizure the morning of the event but is fine now). Great work everyone!

As far as SX coming back, I'm stoked and excited. It'll also be very hairy with so many races in such a short time! What a sprint to the finish we'll have here, and although not all the details are known about how we're going to stay safe, I think reading what the NASCAR guys are doing over on ESPN.com this weekend seems to be pretty stringent and will work. 

I didn't get to watch Fite Klub live this past Tuesday because I chose to head up to Canada to go get a bike that I recently purchased. Yes, you read that right. I drove 19 hours each way up to British Columbia (we had some fun crossing the border as a Canadian citizen and a green card holder—they didn't quite know what to do with me in terms of the border being closed right now) to pick up a 1990 CR500. 

You see, a listener of the PulpMX Show pointed me to a Reddit thread a couple months ago where a guy up there was trying to sell a 500, and it had my old number on it. And yes, it was my actual bike that I raced from '90-92! Still had my numbers, my stickers on it, the AMA tech inspection band from the Millville 500 National on it and everything! I didn't really want any more project bikes, but this was too good to pass up. I brokered the deal and was going to get it at Seattle SX, but well, yeah.

So why not get in and do a road trip? It really wasn't that bad—kind of fun, actually. I hadn't driven that far in a long time (I drove the whole circuit as a privateer mechanic for a number of years), but with some good music, coffee, and podcasts, things went smooth. I even stopped in Boise and got in a mountain bike ride with our own Simon Cudby! (Simon on far left in photo with Austin Kouba and Joel Barnowski from WPS.) I left Sunday morning at 7 and got back Tuesday night at 11.

Most importantly, I got my 500 back! Can't wait to dig into it and restore it back to life.

Lasting Perception (Kellen Brauer)

Now we know. There’s no more guessing games on how this championship is going to finish in 2020. Supercross will commence, and it leaves an interesting crater of discussion. We know riders for the most part are ready and have been preparing. We know teams have been in long discussions with Feld Entertainment about the 2020 supercross season and how it will all be handled. What we don’t know is how this whole thing will appear in two months, two years, or two decades. All we have is right now.

Generally speaking, the excitement to get back to racing is commonplace among supercross fans right now. It has been over two months since we went racing back at Daytona, and if the Moto Fite Klub was any indication, fans are champing at the bit to see more racing. But there are still more questions than answers when discussing this season, and fans are far from shy about expressing concerns.

I have a unique perspective where my audience reach is to a younger crowd with my ramblings over at Start Your Systems. This situation is new to all of us, but it’s especially new to people who don’t remember doubleheaders in the 1990s or motocross being mixed into the middle of the supercross season in the 1980s. Racing in one location seven times over three weeks comes with criticism. Perhaps the most consistent one I’ve found is the altitude argument.

“Great for the fans, kind of sucky for the riders. The schedule with the altitude is going to be tough,” said user Hunter BG. Salt Lake City sits at an elevation of 4,226 feet above sea level, which makes it the second-highest supercross round behind Denver. Recent history reminds us of the problems 2018 supercross champion Jason Anderson has with altitude sickness where he has consistently had to fly into the race in Salt Lake City or Denver the day of, or the night before, and fly out immediately after. But another point of contention is training comparisons. Eli Tomac trains in Colorado at over 6,000 feet, while Ken Roczen and most others train in Florida, which is essentially at sea level. These are world-class athletes, but it can’t be understated how this consistent run of races at nearly a mile high might affect people in different ways.

One question that was left unanswered by Feld in these announcements is the plan for track design. Rice-Eccles Stadium offers the unique ability to exit and reenter the stadium, which was expected to happen for the finale there this year. But what about the other six track layouts?

“I wonder how varied the track layouts will be. I am excited to see how creative they can be,” said user A17Zazueta. Differing track layouts is one of the most unique things about supercross, as riders have to adapt to something different every week. This isn’t cranking out motos at Fox Raceway for two months and then racing a national on the same dirt and a similar layout when the event comes around. It will be one of the more closely watched aspects over the next couple weeks to see if Feld does indeed have a plan in place for design and whether they make that public. [Editor's note: Prater did say in his meeting this evening that there will be seven different track layouts but he acknowledged the time crunch between races does limit what they can pull off].

But perhaps the biggest discussion currently is who benefits the most from this schedule and location: Ken Roczen or Eli Tomac. With both riders possessing an entire race lead in the points on third-place Cooper Webb and only three points between them, it seems pretty clear that this is finally the year one of them becomes champion. Fitting that it will happen in one of the weirdest seasons possible. However, the two-month break both Tomac and Roczen had have been very different from each other.

Tomac and girlfriend Jessica Steiner welcomed their daughter to the world just two weeks ago, while Roczen has admittedly taken a bit of a vacation during this time. Does either situation affect them? How about Tomac training at altitude? How about Ken Roczen recovering from Epstein-Barr virus and dealing with a weakened immune system after 12 surgeries to fix his damaged left arm? All of these questions are being asked by the public.

A big note in all this is that Ken Roczen hasn’t raced at Salt Lake City since he missed the main event in dramatic fashion back in 2013. The seasons since either didn’t go to Salt Lake City or Roczen has been hurt when that round came around. Meanwhile, Tomac put in arguably one of the greatest rides of all time in 2017 at Salt Lake City when he came from a horrible start to blow by Ryan Dungey for the lead and assume the championship lead.

The reason all this matters to fans is fairness. I believe this will be one of the hardest championships ever given the circumstances. But whoever loses, this season will have been so far out of the norm that it can’t be measured the same way. This championship lost two months right in the middle and, with it, any sense of normalcy. For now, though, let’s just breathe a sigh of relief that racing is coming back.

The july 2020 ISSUE OF RACER X MAGAZINE IS NOW AVAILABLE

The July issue of Racer X magazine is coming to newsstands and mailboxes soon. Subscribe to the print and/or award-winning digital edition today. And if you're already a digital subscriber head to digital.racerxonline.com to login and read the issue in full right now.

Inside the JUly issue of Racer X magazine

• What happens to the business of racing when racing itself stops without warning?
• When he was diagnosed with the COVID-19 coronavirus, Rick Johnson fought back—just like always.
• Simon Cudby’s photos remind us that better days are ahead.
• The history of the AMA Amateur National Motocross Championships before Loretta Lynn’s.

Hey, Watch It!

Here's a news story about the GNCC Racing season starting up again this weekend in Georgia.

If you watched the Moto Fite Klub event on Monday and Tuesday night, you saw the awesome bench racing and then actual racing. But if you missed either the live fireside chat or the racing, you still have the opportunity to go back and watch both. You can watch the archive of the fireside chat they had on Monday night for free and while it is a pay-per-view event (with money going to several different charities), you can still pay to watch the archive of the event.

Unchained viewing party tomorrow night

LISTEN TO THIS

Jason Thomas and Jason Weigandt join host Steve Matthes to discuss all that went down at the Moto Fite Klub race yesterday from the good, the bad, and the ugly. We also dive into the latest plan to get Monster Energy AMA Supercross started back up.

This week on the Main Event Moto Podcast, Daniel Blair, Senior Director of Supercross Mike Muye, and Producer Joe talk about the behind the scenes of Monster Energy AMA Supercross.