Phil Nicoletti is back at the races, and now he’s going back for more races. On the flight to Australia for this weekend’s Australian GP, he fired off more answers to your questions. This edition is all about his experience in Cardiff, Wales, last weekend at the first WSX round. Send him a note Phil@racerxonline.com and ask him about Australia this weekend, where he will be back at it with his FXR/Club MX Yamaha team.
Phil, you were there. I can ask 20 questions about how much you hated the track, travel, the food, etc., but I won’t.
I’d ask if you made good money, but I’m more interested in how Eli [Tomac] did. It was a one-off race for a guy who is ready for some rest after a long season but is still racing. He got paid to show up and then he won the biggest piece of the purse. How well do you think he did financially, +/- 250K?
- Stan
Stan,
Eli deserves every penny that he made for the WSX round. Especially with the show and dominance he put on. I’m always baffled at how fast he is. Especially with minimal time on SX. I have an excuse because I haven’t ridden any moto or SX. Eli had strictly been focused on moto due to des Nations. But watching him in Cardiff, he looked like he had never got off SX. Mind blowing how he was just bulldozing sections. Literally bulldozing! He made $250-300K I’d assume. That would be all-in with salary and whatnot. But he deserved it because he went 1-1-1 and made passes on a basic track that was really hard to pass on. I really thought he’d end up going to Melbourne, but I’m sure that would have created a shit storm. He was one helluva wildcard. I’m sure he was also able to fly business class, and I’d assume that was on the series' dime. I’m sure it wasn’t cheap, but I’m not knocking it. The dude deserves it.
Well Phil, good stuff on Eli, but I think the letter above really had the questions worth asking: how much did you hate the track, the food, the travel, the time zones and everything else?
-Weege
Weege,
Of course you’d say I hated everything about it. But to be honest, I only had two negatives.
1.) The track was extremely basic, which made it really hard for passing. The berms were super small, and really wide. Only way to really make a pass was to literally kill someone, which didn’t make it fun. Some dudes were trying to do the killing back in 12th, too. Some forgot to switch their brains on.
2.) The moto format was pretty ehhhhh. I like the three-moto format, just not when it’s bing, bang, boom. I feel it needs two motos, then a break before the third one. Build some suspense and allow riders and teams to figure out where the hell they’re at. This also allows teams to fix some bikes.
Other than that, it was a freaking blast. We had the full experience. Our team Manager Kourtney Lloyd got us an unreal AirB&B in downtown Cardiff that was four stories. The whole team stayed there. We had a chef that cooked breaky and dinner every night. I was a crackhead with the coffee.
Yeaaaa, I sucked with limited time riding and whatnot, but to see all the fans in Cardiff from all over the UK and Europe was insane. Cardiff streets were shut down, and Supercross fans were everywhere. I feel they did a really really good job for the first go. Remember, SX and MX here have been going on for 40-50 years. It was hard to even watch outdoors this year at times. People are always quick to forget on past issues that happened and take a jab at something else. I’m here for competition in our sport. Helps raise the bar, or else nothing would ever change.
Hey Phil, congrats on returning to racing. I heard you saying you had not ridden much supercross leading into it. Is it actually scary going out there not being 100 percent sure of where you’re at while also getting on the track with other riders?
- Luke in Maryland
Luke,
I had two full weeks riding before I went to Cardiff. One week motocross, one week supercross. I made the commitment for WSX before I had even ridden. But it was something I really, really wanted to do. I’m getting older, and the chances to travel places and meet people that love what I love is dwindling with time. So, to me, it was a must. Obviously, I wasn’t really ready. I knew that and the team knew that (I think). I just wanted to ride and get laps and enjoy it. It’s hard to have intensity when you don’t have the fast twitch that comes with time on the bike. It’s hard to push when you don’t have the flow. Not only do you not have any of that, but then you have the nerves and stress. When you are fit and ready, nerves are easier to handle because you know you’ve logged the time. But when you’ve been off the bike for six months and expect to race supercross at a top level it’s really hard to handle the nerves. Especially when 37,000 people are watching! But when the 30 second card goes up, everything goes back to normal. No nerves, I didn’t think of my arm, I didn’t think of my time off the bike, and I didn’t care who was there. Gate dropped and I went and raced as hard as I could.
