Saturday Night Live: Birmingham

As strong as Webb is riding, and he is riding strong, he simply hasn’t been able to consistently put himself in a position to pounce late in the race, which is something he's been able to do so often from him in the past. It didn’t help tonight in Birmingham when he had to deal with an unusual obstacle in the form of a 30-second-board girl on the first lap. You read that right, Webb had to try to avoid hitting a board-girl as he came around to finish his first lap, and he wasn’t successful in doing so. Somehow the she hadn’t made it completely off the track yet, and when Webb came around he made hard contact with her, sending her flying through the air and onto the dirt on off the side of the track. Fortunately she was okay, and fortunately she landed off the track because there was a pack of riders directly behind Webb who probably wouldn’t have been able to avoid her either.

“That was crazy, I've never seen that before,” Webb said. “We came around and the 30-second-card girl was still in the middle of the track and she was trying to walk off, and Jet went right as she was walking. I was like, ‘All right, I'll go left as she's walking off,’ but she changed direction and I'm like, ‘Oh crap, I'm going to  hit her.’ Pretty scary. I hope she's all right, but it didn't affect the race.”

Fortunately she was okay—it could have easily gone in a different direction! Rounding out the podium was Ken Roczen, who had to work for it by getting around Chase Sexton and Justin Cooper, who was riding especially well.

“I think where I got held up the longest was behind J-Coop [Justin Cooper],” Roczen said in the post-race press conference when asked if it was hard to pass. “It also takes a lot of energy because I tried super hard a few times to get by. I pushed extra hard, but then couldn't make it happen, then dropped back a little bit and had to regroup and go again. I took different lines, and crossed over and made passes. So I would say yes and no. It's just kind of hard when the track is that rutty. We can't really move around the track that much, especially in the rhythms. We kind of just follow and there's no staying low or anything like that. We're kind of just all hovering.”

Speaking of Cooper, the Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha rider had an outstanding night in which he finished fifth, a career high, on the heels of sixth in Daytona, which followed a seventh in Arlington. Clearly, Cooper is trending in the right direction!

“I’ve been trying to learn and take it easy,” Cooper said afterward. “But I really just have to make it happen. We’re halfway through the season now, and I really want to get on the box. That’s something I need to make happen, so I’m going to have to start getting aggressive. I was able to get off to a great start tonight, and that definitely helped. I was able to tag along with Cooper [Webb] and we rode just like if we were at the practice track. I hung in there as long as I could with him before making a few mistakes, then all of a sudden I was playing defense with Kenny [Roczen] and Chase [Sexton].”

Elsewhere in 450SX, Eli Tomac, who won his heat race over Lawrence, had a bad start in the main and wasn’t able to rip through the pack. He got as high as sixth, but then fell victim to a hard charging Jason Anderson, and wasn’t able to put up any sort of fight when Anderson came through.

Adam Cianciarulo finished twelfth in just his second race back after missing races with a cracked bone in his hand, but the points won’t reflet that, as Cianciarulo was docked five points for jumping on a red cross flag.

In the 250 Class chaos still reigns supreme, and Birmingham did nothing to point to any specific rider who might take over the series. In fact, the points leader still only leads by a single point! It is however a different leader, Tom Vialle, who also won the race, his second in a row. Vialle, who struggled so hard in supercross last year, now seems like a new rider, and while you could argue he won Daytona because the track and conditions suited his style so well, that argument doesn’t really apply to Birmingham.

“The first Supercross is always nice, but tonight was kind of a different supercross track. I really wanted to win on a normal Supercross track, and today was back in the stadium,” Vialle said. “The track was, I mean, even if it was a little bit wet in the afternoon, by the night the track was pretty great and I felt great. The last few weeks, I feel better on the bike and I actually had a great winter. We had a big crash in Detroit, so I couldn't really show what, I was able to do, and now I got a podium, then two wins, last week and today. I’m really happy for that.”

Taking second for the third time in a row was Cameron McAdoo, although Seth Hammaker was closing on him at the end of the 250SX main event.

“I saw him [Hammaker] the whole race. There was a couple areas where I knew that he had a better line than me, or he was doing something a little bit better than me. But I knew how much time we had left, and there were a couple of areas of the track that, to be honest with you, made me pretty nervous to race hard. I knew what I needed to do to stay in it, but Seth was riding really good toward the end too and through the whole race, he kept us very honest.”

Added Hammaker, “It feels nice to be a consistent podium guy again. It's been a while since I've raced supercross in general. I only had one full season, that was my rookie season. I had that one win there with a couple of podiums. But beside that, it's been a long time. I’m coming back from some injuries and stuff like that, but I feel like I've done a good job and I feel like I'm back where I should be. Hopefully I can keep this momentum rolling, keep it on the box, and hopefully click off a few wins this season and see where that puts us the finale at Salt Lake City.”

Haiden Deegan didn’t have best night. He went down on the start of his heat when he tangled with Hammaker and was forced to race through the LCQ, then he got a bad start in the main event. On the first lap he went off the track and pinned it through the mechanics area, going around a big double jump and passing several riders in the process. He was later penalized two positions for this. At the end of the race he also teed up Coty Schock, sending him over a berm. The two had words afterward, and although Schock declined to tell us exactly what was said, he confirmed it wasn’t the friendliest of conversations. Even so, Schock was still pumped on his night, and rightly so. He led his heat race, wire-to-wire for the win, a career first for him, and even after he got punted by Deegan, he still placed ninth, which later became an eighth after Deegan was penalized for his off-track excursion.

 The heartbreak of the night award goes to Max Anstie, who came into the night with the points lead, but wasn't able to finish the main event after developing some sort of bike problem.