When I showed up in Middleboro last night at the Ashley Funeral Home, the first person I ran into that I knew was Kaylin, who was up near Bill's open casket along with Bill's wife and admitted "better half," Cheryl, as well as his brother Tom and grandson Levi. Yes, Bill was wearing his signature blue-orange-and-white 3D Racing jersey, as were a bunch of friends who turned out. There were pictures and helmets and riding gear and a slide show and even an amazing bouquet of flowers in the shape of one of Bill's Yamahas, which I meant to snap a photo of but got too teared up talking to his family as they stood in front of it greeting all of Bill's old racing friends.

Next everyone went next store to the Elks Club, where random toasts to Bill were mixed in with some great bench-racing tales, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows New England legends like JoJo Keller and Paul Buckley. I missed some of the other folks who had popped in earlier, including Pat Barton and Keith Johnson and many more, all of whom I know Bill either raced with, sponsored, or helped in some way, shape, or form.

Godspeed, Bill Dill.

Fortunately, my hotel was within walking distance. But when I woke up this morning and looked out the window, six inches of snow covered this part of New England. My flight out of Boston back to Pittsburgh got booted from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and then again to 5:00 p.m., with an unplanned stopover in Washington, D.C. So let me go back to the very beginning….

Welcome to Racerhead, coming to you not from beautiful Arlington, Texas, site of the 8th round of the 2022 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship, but rather from a frozen and snowed-in Boston Logan Airport….

Time to turn it over to Weege!

Oldest Champ Ever (Jason Weigandt)

With young gun Chase Sexton taking a huge hit to his title hopes, the standings now indicate a two-horse race between Eli Tomac and Jason Anderson. Anderson just turned 29, and Tomac will actually turn 30 later this year. If either of these riders wins the title, they will become the oldest AMA Supercross Champion in history. Jeremy McGrath won the title at 28 in 2000. What’s more, Malcolm Stewart sits third in points now, and he’s also 29!

The wave of early retirements for stars like Ricky Carmichael, Ryan Villopoto, and Ryan Dungey is clearly over. The narrative for those early retirements places the blame on Aldon Baker’s gnarly training program, and indeed Anderson has found some longevity now that he has left that behind. Tomac’s trainer is his dad, John, and John Tomac always said he purposely kept Eli off the motorcycle a lot when he was younger to avoid burnout. So there were some key decisions that led to longevity for these two. But now in 2022 we’ve got to study what relit the fire. Racing when you’re older is one thing—we’ve seen that before. What’s new here is that these guys aren’t just still here, but they’re still the best guys.

I have a few theories. First, we’ve seen riders remain competitive into their 30s because of technology. Obviously, training and nutrition science has evolved, and so have the bikes. I was recently watching the 1986 Daytona Supercross on YouTube (look up the ReRaceables Podcast for more on that race) and it was impossibly rough on those old bikes. The jarring landings alone are going to create wear and tear. Today’s bikes have come a long way, and that helps.

However, we know early retirement often comes from mental fatigue more than physical. For that, I think of two key changes in the sport. First, riders are doing a better job separating riding from life. Most top guys just commute to work (the practice track) in the morning, do the laps, do the training, and go home. Evolving to have practice mechanics and top-end facilities removes a lot of stress. Then there was a time when riders owned their own tracks, but that’s no longer the trend. Usually, they just pay to ride at a facility. Now they get to ride and then turn off the part of the brain that is thinking about racing. It helps.

“Good day, bad day, go home and hang out,” Anderson said in last week’s press conference.

Also, I think teams have figured out that fun is a key component to fast. Jeremy Coker told me a huge component to bringing Eli Tomac over to Monster Energy/Star Yamaha Racing is injecting more fun into Eli’s program. Make sure he’s smiling and laughing. I don’t think teams cared about this a generation ago. Now, it would be easy to say that Tomac’s old team at Monster Energy Kawasaki must have been the fun police, but clearly Anderson is still able to keep it loose over there. I think Tomac’s situation was more from just being there so long. I think today’s teams let the riders act like themselves and take the pressure off. The Honda truck is much looser than it was 20 years ago, I can guarantee you that. All of this adds up. Less stress, less thinking about racing, better science, more longevity.

And now we’re looking at supercross champions near age 30. It’s a pretty cool development.

MXGP OPENER (CONT') (DC)

After last weekend's brutal winds grounded the opening round of the FIM Motocross World Championships at Matterley Basin in England and forced a one-week postponement, MXGP will launch this weekend instead. They are no doubt hoping for better weather, but they could not have asked for worse news than what's coming out of Ukraine right now. War in Europe touches everyone, and this one has gotten real ugly, real fast. There's also the bridge to cross on May 1 when the Russian MXGP is to take place at the beautiful Orlyonok facility on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, not far from Crimea, which used to be part of Ukraine until the Russians annexed it back in 2014. And it's not just motocross, as every sport will soon have to cross the bridge of whether or not to go to Russia.

As far as this weekend goes, the same storylines that were set to emerge last weekend are still cued up. With last year's #1 Jeffrey Herlings and second in points Romain Febvre still out with injuries, the door is wide open to Honda's Tim Gajser to go after a fifth world title. It is also open to new GasGas factory team leader Jorge Prado, who wants to claim his first big-bike title to go with his two MX2 crowns. And speaking of MX2, the addition of last year's champion, Maxine Renaux, adds even more depth to this MXGP class, which lost nine-time world champion Antonio Cairoli to retirement. (Coincidentally, I just looked at my friend MX Geoff Meyer's preview on MXLarge.com and he has his top three predictions exactly in that order: Gajser, Prado, and Renaux.)

In the MX2 class, Tom Vialle must be the favorite, having won two years ago, then missing the start of last season with an injury. I imagine he and Jago Geerts (who spent some time this winter in the U.S.) will be the title favorites as well as for this weekend's opener. 

You can watch the MXGP opener from Matterley Basin, with qualifying tomorrow and the main motos on Sunday, on www.mxgp-tv.com.

PULPMX SHOW RECAP (Matthes)

Another interesting PulpMX Show this week with Jim Holley and Keefer coming up to chat about Minneapolis and more. We had Chase Sexton on, and he was pretty adamant he didn’t knock himself out in that crash and that he already went though some independent neurological tests to make sure he was okay. He’ll still have to pass the supercross docs’ concussion test, but he didn’t think that would be a problem at all. Also interesting that he was talking about how he thought he could quad out on that section he crashed on. Although he’s no longer working with James Stewart, the Stew still lurks inside of Sexton!

I think we all assumed that with an supercross-only contract, Marvin Musquin would retire at the end of the year, but we had him on and he definitely didn’t indicate that was on the agenda. He didn’t close the door to racing more and admitted he’s surprised himself with how good he’s riding! I would agree, and with the World SX stuff starting up and the international races coming back, we might be seeing more or Marvin in 2023 and beyond.

We had our buddy Phil Nicoletti on to tell us about his good ride in Minny—his first SX in four years! He also told us that in the incident with Forkner, Austin himself took some of the blame for almost taking them both out. We also called Troll Train to give us his thoughts on how Phil was acting weird all day; Nicoletti had noise canceling headphones on for a while and said that there was no music on it, just white noise. Troll also rode very well in his hometown race with a broken finger even!

Also, Jim Holley is a national treasure and added a lot to the show, including some funny stories about signing a boob, breaking RJ’s leg, Rod Black, Rollerball, and more. Gotta tune in to try and grasp everything that Jim had to say!

GNCC OPENER (DC)

While the MXGP opener was unfortunately derailed and delayed by weather, the 2022 AMA Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) Series did happen in South Carolina with the Big Buck GNCC. With excellent weather and more easing of COVID-19 restrictions, a massive crowd turned out: nearly 2,400 individual racers over the weekend and nearly 10,000 spectators. That was the good news. The bad news was that after a relatively uneventful weekend of youth and amateur motorcycle and ATV races, plus a Stacyc kids’ race that attracted maybe 75 kids, in the final race of the weekend, including the three-hour pro race, three top riders got badly banged up. Stew Baylor suffered a fractured neck (but no spinal cord damage), and both Thad Duvall and Johnny Girroir injured their hips. What a tough way to start a season, working all winter long, only to get beat up in the first race. Here’s a get-well-soon to all three.

The winner of the crowded but star-crossed race turned out to be FMF/KTM Factory Ben Kelley, last year’s champion. Kawasaki’s Josh Strang finished second, with Husqvarna’s Jordan Ashburn third. And visiting European off-road star Josep Garica of Spain finished ninth in his first GNCC. Expect him to improve rapidly as he gets the hang of this more….

And speaking of GNCC, two-time champion and AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Scott Plessinger, father of Red Bull KTM factory rider Aaron Plessinger, joined his son on the sidelines today. AP7, who broke his arm earlier in the week, will miss several rounds of supercross. His dad, long retired from racing, was riding at their track in Ohio when he collided with a minicycle rider and suffered a hip injury. Good luck and get well soon to the Plessingers as well!

DOUBLE DIGITS AND TRIPLE DIGITS (DC)

Last weekend our pal Michael Lindsey of Vital MX posted an interesting stat about the Minneapolis 250SX East Region opener: six double-digit riders failed to make the 40-rider night program. The unlucky outsiders were #68 Preston Kilroy, #70 Ramyller Alves, #75 Luke Neese, #84 Scott Meshey, #89 Lane Shaw, and #92 Jace Kessler.

If all those guys missed out on the main program, how many triple-digit guys were in the night 40-rider night program? Turns out there a bunch—17 to be exact. They were, in numerical order: #116 TJ Albright, #129 Henry Miller, #140 Cullin Park, #214 Joe Clayton, #285 Marshal Weltin, #313 Kyle Swanson, #330 AJ Catanzaro, #331 Derek Drake, #351 Jack Rogers, #412 Jared Lesher, #484 Tanner Ward, #508 Hunter Yoder, #519 Josh Cartwright, #604 Max Miller, #682 Izaih Clark, #715 Phil Nicoletti, and #874 Zack Williams.

Of course, there were no quadruple-digit riders in the 250 class, but there was a single-digit rider, #6 Jeremy Martin, who finished fourth in the 250SX main event.

Hey, Watch It!

This is an excellent breakdown by Fortnine of what happened to the Alta electric motorcycle, it's acquisition by Harley-Davidson and it's ultimate demise:

40-year-old British rider Barry Turnbull races an ancient CR500 against some of the top MXGP riders at Hawkstone Park:

The always entertaining A.J. Catanzaro, Jett Lawrence's partner in the Moto Academy, is back racing and he documented his weekend at Minneapolis here: