Oh wow Phil Nicoletti led at Anaheim 2! In fact, Phil, ahem, should have won a main at Anaheim 2! Phil holeshot the second 250SX West start and then when a bunch of dudes crashed, he found himself with a 5.5 second lead. What happened? Well, our readers want to know, so that makes up the bulk of this week's questions:
Want to rag on Phil some more? Send a question to the Muc-Off/FXR/ClubMX Yamaha rider. Send it to Phil@racerxonline.com.
(Note: Some questions have been lightly edited for clarity.)
Question: Hey Phil,
Congratulations on your 2nd moto podium. Awesome ride! I’m totally curious….what was your mechanic writing on the pit board as you were clicking off lap after lap in the lead? Were you actually reading it? Were you more physically or mentally tired at the finish? How long did your hard earned happiness last before you started beating yourself up for getting passed at the end? Did the factory blue crew quasi teammates of yours have to get a restraining order against you for their protection? Again, AWESOME RIDE! CONGRATULATIONS!
John: aka old, slow, motocross, woods rider never been
Nicoletti: John,
Not gonna lie, I was pretty devastated. If it wasn’t for one bad lap that mentally blew me up, I would have been fine. I had a swap in the whoops where my feet blew off. That same lap I missed the quad and my lead was cut over more than half. I struggled to forget my two mistakes. I let it eat at me, and I never recovered. My mechanic was letting me know the gap, and trying to make me focus on myself. It was all good until my bobbles. It actually wasn’t the mistakes that bothered me, I was more just gutted because I couldn’t recover from those mistakes and get back to running my normal lap times. It was not a physical issue. It was just mental. I f$&@ing cracked. I’ve never in my life lead eight laps in supercross before. Yeah, I’ve lead and won heat races, and semis. But to be out front that long was different. Even leading outdoor motos feels different. I wish I could have held on and fought for it but it wasn’t there. It was all good until it wasn’t. Still learning at 33, FML.
Question: Phil,
Your performance in Moto 2 at A2 was “Philnominal”. When your 5.2 second lead went away it was a bit shocking because there was NO TV coverage as to why. Ricky commented that you may have gotten tight. I’ll buy RC a Gin and Tonic next time I see him. So why didn’t you bring it home.? You had it.
Broome Tioga fan( Wish the national would come back!)
Jim
Nicoletti: Jim,
Kind of like what I said above. It’s not like I didn’t want to win the f$@&ingthing. I think about seven minutes in I began thinking I wanted to win it too much. Instead of focusing on my pit board and only thinking of that, I started to take a look at the leader board and the overall time left. When saw I had three minutes left, I broke concentration and that’s when I had my mistakes.
What’s funny is, I actually got some advice about all this before the race. The Tuesday after San Diego, CW2 [Cooper Webb] sent me this text:
“This weekend do a good 8 laps blacked [red zone] and if someone’s on you just keep it tight and you only have to hold ‘em off 2-3 laps then they get pissed and frustrated and their nights ruined.” Unfortunately I listened to the first part, not the second. It eats at me. It really does.
Question: Phil, A2 I was losing my mind, blue lights a shining. But denied.. awesome ride anyway. Here's my question, they are constantly prepping a supercross track, right! As they should since those tracks look terrifying to the average man. Well, please tell us why would they leave all of those lines coming out of the starting gate!? Especially when half of those ruts go 20 feet and cross each other. Especially after all the carnage within the first 40 yards of the season so far. Please enlighten us.
jtg66
Nicoletti: JTG,
They do prep the tracks, but they don’t really hold up. We had a fully prepped track for the first moto, and it quickly falls apart. The first main was super hard to pass because it was smooth and one lined. But by the second main, there were a lot more lines in the corners that allowed more mistakes from the guys. I actually don’t agree with prepping in front of the gates before the heat races/mains/triple crown. Trust me, I wish they did because I suck at practice qualifying and what not. But that’s the whole point of qualifying good in practice and in the heat race. You earn the best gate pick and rut. It’s bullshit, in my opinion, to qualify first, but the ninth place dude is getting the same prepped gate. There has to be some incentive to want to qualify good. In the mains last weekend, there were maybe three good gates. Literally three. The rest were absolute f$@&ing garbage. They felt like you were sitting on a jackhammer coming out of the gate. A normal night of racing with heat races and LCQ’s is 8 gate drops. Triple Crown is 6. A2 was much worse than San Diego out in front of the gate with less gate drops. So it’s either the way the dirt is, or the way they prepped it. But the ruts sucked! That’s just the way it is.
