One of the things that’s most frustrating in our sport is the number of injuries we get. Some seasons, there are millions of dollars on the sideline which doesn’t help the promoters, the teams or the fans. Supercross and motocross is inherently pretty dangerous, always has been and always will be. This year Feld Motor Sports is trying to help that out with some changes to the tracks.
The whoops have been cut to a maximum of nine, they’re to be built with a dozer (not a loader, which often makes steeper whoops), and no more dragon's backs. This is all done with an effort in mind to keep riders racing all year long. I caught up with Director of Supercross, Mike Muye, in Detroit to find out more.
Racer X: We’ve noticed some changes. Nine whoops only. No dragon's backs. Kind of instituted by you guys a little bit. I do think the fact that we can’t keep these guys healthy is maybe the worst thing about our sport. So, I’m imagining that’s where this comes from?
Mike Muye: Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, we’ve got to look at rider safety. So, as you mentioned, the dragon’s backs, we’ve removed them from all the tracks in this current season. We’ve gone down to nine whoops total, at least for the foreseeable future. We’re going to play with that size as the season goes on and kind of see what works, what doesn’t. We’ll take rider feedback and make decisions on that.
Most notably though, we’re looking at data and compiling data. You would think that there would be more over the 50 years that we’ve been, but we’re going back and looking at past years and utilizing what are called “fall down reports.” That says every single location that a rider has fallen on the course, and comparing where that is. Is it in the whoops? Is it in rhythm lanes? And trying to make educated decisions based off of data. Other than what I think probably you and I can speak for, have assumptions, but data is fact. So, that’s what we’re working on. It’s crawl, walk, run. We’ll see what we learn this year, what we learn next year. But we have to start somewhere and that’s where we’re at right now.
Who came up with nine? I understand what you’re saying. Shorter whoops sections. Is there a reason why there’s nine?
So, nine seems to be a number that when you start getting into ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, we’ve had fourteen and sixteen before. So we started small, on the low end of the scale. I don't think that nine is probably the number that’s going to stick. But we also didn’t want to start with fourteen and work backwards. Nine is the number we’re at now and we’ll continue to look.
Talking to some riders and track guys, they were telling me dozer whoops are different than loader whoops. The difference between building them. Some thoughts are loader whoops are steeper and keep the speeds down. Dozer whoops are faster, higher speeds, you hit the ground harder. Has that been thought about at all? I see both sides.
During media sessions, myself with (Mike) Pelletier (from the AMA), we have a room that almost every rider comes through. We ask them about tracks, thoughts, suggestions. The Dirt Wurx guys talk to people. We all talk. The biggest thing with whoops, is big and fat on the top so that they have plenty of wheel space to tap. That’s really what we’re after. That’s better done with dozer. Not necessarily easier, but it’s what we’ve found that works the best. You can see it here in Detroit. They’re pretty big and fat on top. That’s what we look for.
Hard to get all the teams to reach a consensus on anything, but what has been the teams’ response when you brought this to the managers and the teams.
Good. All of them are supportive and provide feedback. Consensus is tough. Everybody has different ideas, but that’s our job. Our job is to take all of that information and make an educated decision. They’ve been around the sport for a long time. Obviously, the riders ride at the level that they do, so we need their support. We tapped into Ricky [Carmichael], [Ryan] Villopoto… Anybody that’s willing to give advice, we’ll take it. We’re not the smartest guys in the room, so we take what we can get.
It is weird, when you look at us compared to any kind of form of racing – Indy Car or MotoGP or whatever – or you look at mainstream sports, which you and I are a fan of. We can’t keep our stars going all year. It’s just that dangerous of a sport. I guess this is the idea behind it. As we get longer into the seasons, harder to sell tickets, harder to keep interest up when guys can’t stay healthy.
Yeah. And there’s always going to be a level of danger to supercross. Our goal is to minimize it in any way possible. There’s other things that we’ve done over the course of the years with padding. Anything that we can do to keep these guys healthy is not out of the question.
I guess one of my ideas is always that, I cannot believe that front and back and safety protection isn’t mandated, like it is in Europe. But I guess the legality here and litigation and stuff. Is that kind of what’s stopping that? Personal choice thing?
Yeah. The personal choice is a challenge. We don’t feel comfortable telling the riders, “This is what you have to wear, whether you feel comfortable or not.” Because it can cause more problems, right? So, that’s really where that’s at.
Step one for me would be like, “Hey, this is what you have to do to race.” In my eyes, but then legally…
Yeah. These guys move on the bike so much. Really it has to be their comfort level. But it’s not to say that we don’t try to encourage it at the junior levels and encourage them to be raised that way, because then you get used to riding that way.
One thing I think about that would be an awesome part for our sport, but I guess it would be really expensive for you guys. I think there should be a dedicated safety crew each week, like we see in other motorsports. Professionals. Everybody tries to do their best, but sometimes flagging is not ideal week to week. Has that been kicked around? Has that been talked about? Has that been something that you want to do? Again, I see the downside of it being really expensive.
It is very expensive. But really the drawback is finding 28 people that want to travel to 17 rounds a year. We’ve made significant strides ahead in flagging over the years. We have a gentleman that manages them, and it’s just true passion. He works very closely with them on education. I think what a lot of folks don’t understand is these aren’t just people we found on Craigslist. These are people that have worked with us for many years. They travel to a lot of the events, at least regionally. Indy, Detroit… So, they’re not unseasoned folks. They’re very well trained. John does a great job with them. Can we be better? Yeah. We can always be better. When we become stagnant is when we have problems. So, we’ll keep growing in that regard.
Great start to the series. We’ve seen almost everything. Track-wise, win-wise, rider, all of that. It’s been a really interesting start to the season. I’ve been covering this a long time, and I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen next. I guess for you, that’s a great thing.
It is great. Just overall, it’s a great time to be a part of the sport. I’ve done this for quite a while. I know you’ve done this for quite a while. Just the vibe and everything around the sport right now is where we need to be and where we need to continue to go. There’s positivity. Everybody is working together to build. Just specifically to this season, it’s had its ups and downs, but that makes it fun, right? None of us want a mud race. Our crew, the riders, the teams, nobody wants that, but that’s the hand we’re dealt. That’s professional dirt bike racing at the highest level. We do what we can.
