RedBuuuuuuuuuuuud! That bellow will be heard across the Midwest this weekend as the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship powers into round five. America’s national, RedBud MX (formerly RedBud Track ‘N Trail) is located in Buchanan, Michigan, and will also host this year’s Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations event in September. Hosting a national on the 4^th of July and also the MXoN speaks volumes about the quality of this event. Fans will come out in droves, too, as this race will likely draw the highest attendance numbers of the season. It’s really hard to not love this event.

Dirty Little Secrets

The track has undergone huge changes over the years. If you can find a VHS recording of this track back in the ‘80s and ‘90s and watch it, you would see hard, slippery terrain. The second motos would feature a track littered with hardened ruts and then water applied to the top of that. It reminded me of the Teutschenthal track in Germany. Treacherous and not very much fun, really. Nowadays, the RedBud track is much more forgiving. Endless truckloads of mulch and sand have been brought in to add traction and improve the overall rideability. While some may say that too many American tracks are similar nowadays, it’s hard to make the argument that the track hasn’t improved by leaps and bounds since the ‘90s. Traction is plentiful, the elevation is challenging, there are massive jumps to wow the fans, and the new start (built for MXoN in 2018) is much safer than the prior version. Kudos to the Ritchie family for continuing to invest and improve.

As for how to go fast at RedBud, it’s about two things that are intertwined, anyway. First, the long ruts at RedBud can be your best friend or your worst enemy. The successful riders Saturday will be able to flow through the ruts and apply heavy throttle on the exit. You’ll see the opposite of this more easily as riders will be “stood up” in the rut and have to brake and/or engage the clutch to slow themselves down. Keeping that lean angle in the rut at speed is the key.

The second key is different but goes back to the same principal. Many of the RedBud corners are big, open sweepers. The fast route is to sweep in from the outside and carry all of that momentum through the inside/middle of the corner and utilize it for even more speed down the next straightaway. All of the sections on the LaRocco’s Leaps side of the track will require this approach. Trying to stick to the insides to “point and shoot” simply won’t work at this racetrack. Staying off the brakes and allowing the natural momentum to carry you is the absolute minimum. The elite will be actually accelerating through sections where novice riders would be applying brakes. Tough to employ but that’s why these guys are the best at what they do. In the end, be it in the rutted corners or the big sweepers, building speed instead of losing it is the key. That sounds simple, but it's very hard to execute.