On a personal note, I found out about the postponement of the event at a rather surreal moment. I was in Park City, Utah, on Wednesday morning, having flown out the day before to attend the Celebration of Life for Ken Block, the action sports entrepreneur/icon who was tragically killed in a snowmobile accident the week before. Ken was the cofounder of DC Shoes back in 1994, and became a sponsor of many top SX/MX riders over the years, including Ricky Carmichael, Jeremy McGrath, Jeff Emig, Ryan Hughes, Jimmy Button, and even Chad Reed, who was not sponsored by DC but brought his family there, as they had still become friends over the years. I listed those superstars because they were all there for the celebration of #43’s life, as all became good friends with Ken, and remained friends long after Ken and his partner Damon Way sold the company in 2004 to Quiksilver. That’s why so many were there, along with top athletes and industry members of the skate/snow/surf industries, as well as rally, where Ken really became his own global brand.

Anyway, I was sitting at the end of a long table with Ricky and Fro at the pre-celebration memorial brunch, along with Monster Energy executives Dave Gowland and Mitch Covington, who sponsored Ken for many years in his rally car/Gymkhana/Hoonigan endeavors, and of course also sponsors SX as well as several teams and top stars. We were all talking about the rain in Oakland and how that might affect the series, which had gotten off to such a strong start. RC was headed there the next day to do the TV coverage, though he was hoping there might be a schedule change, and then he might get a weekend at home if he could get his plane ticket changed. That’s right about when my phone pinged with a message from Matthes: “Oakland postponed.” I read it out loud to the table, and everyone pulled out their own phones and started canceling flights. Ricky, you owe Matthes a Re-Raceables Podcast for helping you get the holeshot on a flight home to Florida! Because a half-hour later, the announcement came out about the postponement.

Conversation quickly turned to the unprecedented matter at hand (and gladly, because the brunch was an otherwise somber affair for all of us). No AMA Supercross had ever been canceled before, right? Actually, wrong. Turns out that this is the second time an AMA Supercross was canceled or postponed due to severe rain. Back in 1977, the AMA Supercross Championship Series was set to be an 11-round affair, with stops in Atlanta, Daytona, Houston, Dallas, Pontiac (Michigan), New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Anaheim. Three of the cities—Houston, Dallas, and Pontiac—were set for weekend doubleheaders, with races either Friday night/Saturday night or Saturday night/Sunday afternoon. There was one problem: the old Texas Stadium in Irving, just outside of Dallas, didn’t have a roof like the Houston Astrodome or the brand-new Pontiac Silverdome. Instead, the home of the Dallas Cowboys had a funky partial roof that covered the stands but not the playing field. The stadium first hosted SX doubleheaders in 1975, though they had added up the four “motos” over the weekend to count as one round of the series. That was changed for ’77 when the series went to the current format of one main event after a series of qualifiers, so each night was its own separate round.

On Saturday, March 26, 1977, the first night of racing began just as a massive storm front rolled into the Dallas area. With 17,000 fans in the grandstands staying mostly dry, the track quickly became a muddy mess. The rain steadily continued until the 20-lap main event, and then it really started pouring. Apparently none of the AMA officials, nor the promoter (PACE Motorsports), offered to cut the laps down—something that does happen often in the modern era. So top riders like Team Honda’s Marty Smith and Jim Pomeroy, Suzuki’s Tony DiStefano and Danny Laporte, Maico’s Steve Stackable and Gaylon Mosier, Kawasaki’s Jimmy Weinert (the defending series champion) and Terry Clark, and Yamaha’s Bob Hannah and Rick Burgett were left to slither and slide around a quagmire of a supercross track that was getting worse and worse. Lap times went past the three-minute mark, which meant the ’77 Dallas SX would be the longest AMA Supercross main event in history. The winner—the aptly nicknamed Bob “Hurricane” Hannah—needed an hour to complete the 20 laps. Hannah had been 30 seconds behind leader Pomeroy on the last lap when Jim got stuck trying to get up the over-under jump at the center of the track. By this point, Pomeroy joined a stadium floor full of stranded bikes with either burned-up clutches, no more fuel, or just plain stuck. (There’s no official account of how many bikes finished or were on the same lap as the winner, but an educated guestimate would say four: Hannah, runner-up Pomeroy, third-place Stackable, and fourth-place Marty Smith.) Afterward, Hannah joked, “I thought they were going to get that leak in the roof fixed last year.”

Here are the results:

Immediately after the race, mechanics had to start cleaning and prepping the bikes for the next day’s matinee. Cycle News’ Jim Gianatsis reported that some mechanics stayed up until five in the morning trying to get their bikes ready, even while the rain kept falling. Finally, mercifully, it was decided at 7:00 Sunday morning that the afternoon round of AMA Supercross would be canceled because the mud in the stadium was “knee-deep.” The people who run Texas Stadium, as well as the Dallas Cowboys, were not happy with what AMA Supercross had done with their field. As a matter of fact, they would not allow a postponement, but rather demanded a full cancelation. And they would not welcome SX back to Texas Stadium for another seven years.

(Coincidentally, that '77 event featured the largest collection of different manufacturers ever in an AMA Supercross main event, with ten total: Can-Am, Honda, Husqvarna, Kawasaki, Maico, Ossa, Penton, Suzuki, and Yamaha. However, there were 24 riders in the main event, a couple more than today's usual 22 entrants.)

That’s the story of what was the one and only round of AMA Supercross ever canceled or postponed due to rain, at least until tomorrow’s postponed ’23 Oakland SX. (And it should be mentioned that in 1992 the Los Angeles Coliseum finale was postponed and push back three weeks due to the riots in South Central Los Angeles that broke out upon the “not guilty” verdict in the Rodney King beating case, as well as the cancellation of the ’85 Pontiac SX after snow collapsed the inflated roof of the stadium a month before the race. There was also the postponement and then full cancellation of the ’03 Kenworthy’s National in Ohio after the track flooded not once but twice that summer.)

With that all explained, enjoy the off-weekend from Monster Energy AMA Supercross, and see you back here next week from San Diego (hopefully). For now, though, here’s Weege with a little more on last weekend’s sold-out opener at Angel Stadium in Anaheim.

And check out the March 2023 issue of Racer X Illustrated, featuring Honda HRC's Colt Nichols.

What a Night (Jason Weigandt)

I’ve never heard Angel Stadium as loud as it was Saturday night, which says a lot. A1 is always electric, but this crowd was even louder than the usual loud, and right from the start. (Old-timers can probably say that 1986 Anaheim, when the stadium had way more seats, was even louder. The story goes that defending SX #1 Jeff Ward could hear the crowd from the nearby Del Taco drive thru, where he went on the way home after he failed to make the main. That’s cool, but I wasn’t there.) Anyway, Saturday’s response during the salute to the late, great Ken Block was spine-tingling. Then the anthem singer rocked the house until her mic cut out, so Steven “Lurch” Scott (the stadium announcer) started singing while they got her mic fixed. Incredible save by Lurch—the crowd went nuts, and then Feld got a new microphone to the girl and belted out one of the best renditions of an anthem I’ve ever heard. Crowd went crazy! This audience was hungry for it, and the main event brought the best, with four different leaders—and Eli Tomac led twice!

It was a fantastic start to the new season, and we have the rain gods to thank. Anaheim 1’s track was perfectly tough. The Dirt Wurx crew did a masterful job combatting all of the rain that led up to the event, which fortunately stopped Friday morning. The track was covered in plastic, but water still seeped in here and there—especially in the low spots like the transfers between jumps. But while it wasn’t a mudder, no rider could do every jump on every lap, and all those mistakes led to some dynamite racing. People always freak out when they see rain in the forecast ahead of a race. Most of the time it doesn’t even matter by race time. Sometimes it makes the track better. To have that kind of action at the opener … wow, that’s perfection.

Unfortunately, I got too cocky this time. All the rumors were of rain in Oakland, so I went to Twitter and took it upon myself to pretty much guarantee the race was still happening. On Tuesday, that was the word. The race was going to happen, just like always. Even when it rains. Okay, I have to take a huge, huge loss on that one. I was actually on my way to ClubMX when I heard the news, so that was a huge topic once I rolled up to the track. I chatted with Enzo Lopes and Phil Nicoletti, and also caught up with the long-lost Coty Schock, who is not only coming back from a torn ACL last year but broke his jaw more recently. Coty will only have about four weeks of riding under his belt once 250SX East begins in Houston. He’s still with the Phoenix Racing Honda team.

Anyway, back to 450SX. Eli Tomac, who usually comes from behind and still wins titles—and is breaking in a new motorcycle—managed to crash and still win at Anaheim. This is a tough sign for the competition. As Cooper Webb said on PulpMX on Monday, “I’m feeling good, but I’ve still got to race a guy named Eli Tomac.” Webb sure looks like he’s back on his 2021 championship form, but Tomac might be better than ever!

Anyone who wants to beat Tomac for this title has to remind themselves that this is just the opener. Yeah, we’re used to exciting winners who often don’t win again for the rest of the season (like Barcia and Roczen the last four seasons). This looks different, because Tomac is the defending champ. It looks more repeatable. But openers can be weird regardless of who wins. You never truly know who was dealing with opening-round jitters. Everyone is guessing, and few are riding at their best, especially on that crazy track. You will likely see a much better Chase Sexton going forward, for example. Malcolm Stewart said that was really his first time ever leading laps like that. Webb and Ferrandis had terrible starts, and Jason Anderson crashed a ton. It’s the opener, so there’s a chance that even when an all-timer wins, it’s not a guarantee of dominance.

But it’s Eli Tomac. Finally winning round one. It’s pretty scary!

ARENACRASH (Matthes)

A few weeks back we had Robbie McQuary on the PulpMX Show to talk about the relaunch of the AMA Arenacross Championship series, backed by Kicker, and how the series has some big plans and goals moving forward. Well, they really got a "Kicker" this weekend with the Oakland SX being postponed! A lot of privateer heroes—guys like Grant Harlan, Cade Clason, Mitchell Harrison, Dominique Thury, Jerry Robin, the Wageman brothers, and more—are showing up in Prescott, Arizona, to fight it out tonight and tomorrow. And you can watch it live streaming here: https://rydetv.com/.

Tomorrow night’s round will also air live on MAVTV, beginning at 9:30 pm Eastern/6:30 pm Pacific. You can also apparently see it here on your devices.

It's not SX, but it might be the next best thing, right? As we know with AX, things get intense, and the defending champion, Kyle Peters of the Phoenix Racing Honda squad, just might have his hands full tonight. Also, the promoters reached into their wallets and pulled out an extra $5K tonight for someone who wins both main events. 

I spoke to Cade after today’s practice, and he said: "whoops are insane but the track’s fun, there are a lot of guys here. It's tight also." He also wanted me to point out Harlan was the only rider who could skim the whoops in practice. I saw some social media videos of the track, and yes, the whoops look big. This should be a good test for all the Privateer Islanders out there. Also, AX does the whole inverted start thing after the first main event, so winner gets last pick and so on. Catch the fever of AX!

Whither Deegan? (DC)

There was some buzz online that Haiden Deegan might also be lining up at the Arenacross in AZ this weekend, so we called his dad, Brian, this afternoon to find out if that might really happen. The answer is no, despite the unique opportunity to get some track time in with some very good veteran supercross/arenacross riders. Instead, Haiden is focused on doing the Anaheim 2 SX Futures race, which will run as part of the night program, and see how it goes.

“It’s a really unique chance for him to be in the real setting on a real supercross, since they’ve moved it into the night program,” Brian said. “The team wasn’t sure about it, since he’ll be back on his amateur bike and not the race bike he’s been practicing on, but that’s fine. His times on the SX tracks have been really good, so I think he’ll be fine either way.”

Deegan added that the team really wants Haiden to ride the East Region, and to approach it not as if he has to win, but just to get some invaluable experience.

“Haiden wants to ride East as well, but we also want him to be able to drop out if he wants to focus on getting ready for outdoors, because I think that’s what we want to focus on most right now,” Brian explained. He said that’s been the plan in terms of really beginning his professional career, but it’s changed a little since he joined Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing and has been able to ride with the team on their SX tracks. Now the team feels comfortable with him lining up in the East, but they don’t want too much pressure on him at the same time. As we’ve all seen before, DangerBoy doesn’t really hold back, so this should be really, really interesting to watch.

PODCAST PODCAST (Matthes)

I did a super cool podcast with Ohio MX legend Jeff Gibson where he talked about being given a Cannondale factory R&D ride at 19 (and all the stuff that went down with that), his Subway Honda days, racing in Canada, and winning the AX title.

Privateer Island pods this week went with the two dudes who put it into the Anaheim 1 450SX main event—and maybe some of the more unexpected dudes at that, John Short and Grant Harlan! Harlan talked about why he's on a 2022 YZ450 all season and his WSX time with Club MX, and Short discussed how he's still getting used to the new Kawasaki. Give it a listen!

High Dez (Keefer)

You know, a lot of you guys talk mess about my lovely high desert, but we are here for you when it rains too much in Southern California! You SX guys come up to our hood because we have that loamy/sandy soil that soaks up the rain, therefore you all can ride and train. I don't want to hear about how the high dez isn't that great, but it's good enough for you pampered factory guys when it's wet out isn't it? (This is sarcasm by the way. Slight sarcasm.) On a serious note, Carson Mumford's place in Adelanto, California, has been popping off lately because of all the weather, so you know there’s been some serious eye racing going on between competitors who seem to be showing up to practice on the same day, at the same track. Usually these riders are at separate tracks, but the weather forces everyone to come together and practice as one. On these combination days, some of the top riders will wait to ride until others go in for a break, but some riders—like Jason Anderson, Chase Sexton, and Adam Cianciarulo—will roll out on the track when it's thick with factory riders. It's fun to watch some of these dudes glance over on the jumps to see where the other rider is on the track, every single lap. Once a racer always a racer! To say that getting the best of a competitor on a practice day doesn't mean much would be some BS. These guys love to be the fastest guy on the track, no matter the day or place.

On another note, Carson Mumford is back riding already from the broken wrist he sustained not so long ago. He's not riding SX yet, but he is doing some motos at Glen Helen already. Most of the factory riders would prefer to be racing instead of taking a weekend off, but they also didn't want to race their dirt bikes in a lake. That usually doesn't work. See you all next weekend! Go Dolphins! Fins up! 

R.I.P. Robbie Knievel (DC)

We read the sad news this morning that Robbie Knievel, the son of the late daredevil Evel Knievel, and himself a long-distance jumper in his youth, passed away due to pancreatic cancer. Robbie billed himself as Kaptain Knievel and rode in his father’s tire tracks, though Evel was usually jumping on a Harley, while Robbie chose Honda CR500s for his stunts. He often repeated some of his dad’s legendary stunts, too, like jumping the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, or part of the Grand Canyon (in place of the Snake River Canyon). Back in 1996, during the Racer X newspaper days, we sent Danny Nappi to a no-hands record attempt in upstate New York. Here’s video from that epic night:

Robbie Knievel was in hospice care when he passed, his two daughters by his side. He was 60 years old. Godspeed, Kaptain Knievel.

Thank you, Creekside Motocross (Mitch Kendra)

The Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship has been the focal point of our coverage here at Racer X the last few weeks—especially with the Anaheim 1 SX wrapping up and the news of the rescheduled Oakland Supercross the last few days. The top riders of the sport took over the most visited venue in AMA Supercross history and we watched as winners arose and others left dejected. But I have to give a shout-out to a small, family-owned facility here in the corner of Pennsylvania that had an impact on the weekend warrior type of riders, especially my family.

Creekside Motocross, one of the longest running local practice tracks in the West Newton, Pennsylvania, area, recently announced they are closing its doors. Dave Eisaman, a motocross enthusiast himself, started the track back in 2000 to provide local fellow motocross enthusiasts a place to ride. Fast forward 22 years later, and the facility remained packed each weekend. People within a reasonable distance would make the drive to Creekside Motocross each weekend because Eisaman always had the track prepped freshly each morning and the track provided a great practice circuit to riders of all different age and skill levels.

Although the track was regularly packed each weekend, the decision to close was not Eisaman’s choice. Eisaman had been renting the massive property the track was on the entire time from its actual owners. In 2020, the property owners told Eisaman his lease was up at the end of 2022, and they would not be renewing it for another year, effectively closing the track no matter what once the calendar year was complete. Eisaman said he was given a heads up in 2020—so nearly two years in advance—and he was able to start to take in the news. Still, it was not easy for him to comprehend himself. And when it came to announcing the news, he told us it was tough to close down since so many riders banked on him and his facility to ride, being the only track in the area. Eisaman thought about pursuing another property and starting from scratch, but with a young child at home he decided he was at peace with closing and spending more time with his family.

Read the rest of my feature on Creekside Motocross

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2023 Oakland Supercross Postponed Due to Severe Weather | Racer X Rapid News

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In honor of the passing of "Kaptain" Robbie Knievel:

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