You already know what happened, championship-wise, at the final SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) round at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but you probably haven’t heard from many riders who weren’t running up front over the weekend. Well, if you’re looking for news on Grant Harland and Kyle Chisholm, we’ve got you covered—we caught up with both of them in the pits on Saturday night, and here’s what they had to say.
Grant Harlan | 18-13 for 15th overall
Racer X: Take us through your night.
Grant Harlan: Yesterday I had a little tip over on the last lap of the second practice [on Friday] and kind of banged my shoulder up pretty good. I was pretty worried about even being able to race. It was similar to Nashville last year. I kind of felt a pop. It was already damaged, but I don’t feel it on a day-to-day basis. It had that stiff, slow feeling. I started off qualifying pretty well, everything felt good, and in the second practice I got a little bit better but struggled really bad in the first moto with setup. Made some minor changes that helped quite a bit and took 13th [in moto two, 15th overall]. I’m bummed I didn’t get a better start in the second moto and that I didn’t have a better finish in the first one.
Well, there’s always something to be bummed about.
I kind of did the same thing at Charlotte. I had a really good start in the first moto and struggled with the bike and went straight backward. The second moto I started in the back and the bike felt way better and I moved forward.
What was the track like? Particularly that back section with all that mulch?
It was soft on top, but once you pushed through the soft stuff it got really hard, kind of like the rest of the track. The back section was a little tricky and pretty one-lined. There wasn’t much you could do. It’s tough on these speedway tracks, there’s only so much they can do. I feel like they’re getting better with it though.
Talk about that double-quad-quad section. Some of the guys seemed like they had a hard time hitting it cleanly every time, and other guys didn’t seem to have a problem at all.
I never tried it, never even thought about it. I choose life.
Kyle Chisholm | 20-17 for 20th overall
How’d it go out there for you today?
Kyle Chisholm: It was a bit of a rough day. I felt good early this week riding, but I woke up Wednesday morning and I wasn’t feeling good. I was pretty sick. I’m much better today than I was a few days ago, but I’m still not 100 percent. That was a bummer coming into the weekend like that. The first lap of the first moto, Christian Craig got a little squirrely. Just racing, but he came across the track and took out my front wheel. I hit my head pretty good, went down hard, and landed on my back hard. I was able to get up and finish, got 20th, so not very good. I wasn’t sure if I could even race the second moto. I did the parade lap, and I was like, "Okay, I have to try. I’ll kick myself if I don’t try." I got 17th, salvaged some points, made some money. All in all, it was okay, but man it was a rough day, not how I wanted it to go. After feeling good early this week, then getting sick and crashing with Christian in the first moto, not a great way to end it [SMX].
Check out the get-together with Craig below.
That double-quad-quad, you were doing that, weren’t you?
I did do it, but in the motos I didn’t. I fell on the first lap in that first moto, so I was just finishing it out. And in the second moto I wasn’t feeling very good. If I’d needed to do it, I would have, but for where I was it was like, "Hey, let’s just finish this thing off." I did it all day in both practices but there was no need to do it in the motos.
Was it getting sketchy toward the end?
It was. The landing of the double got a big hole in it, so that was tricky, and it was also just very slippery. Just getting drive up the quad, with that hole and how slippery it was, was inconsistent. You didn’t know what kind of drive you were going to get. On a 450 you can go too long, and it’s hard to get your timing right when you don’t know what kind of traction you’re going to get.
How’d the rest of the track hold up?
Honestly, I thought the track was terrible. Not that the track guys did anything wrong, but the lighting wasn’t very good, and it was dark in a lot of areas. With the ruts in the outdoor section, it was tough. There were parts where you couldn’t see anything. It was also a little bit of follow the leader, there was nowhere to go. It was tough to make passes. I don’t know what the racing was like from a fan’s perspective, but I’ll go back and watch it. I think they could have given us a much better racetrack. I don’t know, maybe the speedways make it tough to build something good because they’re so long and skinny and have walls going down the middle. It wasn’t a fun track to race on. I’m not trying to be a complainer, just being honest.
You’re just answering the question I asked, that’s all.
Yeah, it wasn’t that great with the track and the lighting. It just wasn’t the best, in my opinion.
Do you know what you’re doing next year?
I want to race, and we’re still figuring that out with the team. I don’t really want to do the whole outdoor season again. I’ll be 37 in a couple months, and it’s a lot of races. Ideally, it’d be supercross, and these playoffs again. And maybe some world supercross. I’d even do a few outdoors, depending on how things are going. I don’t know, we’ll see.
You’re Chizz, you’re going to do them all.
[Laughs] We’ll see, I want to race. Just need to work things out with the team. I technically have a deal for next year. When we did my deal the third year was left open because at the time I didn’t foresee myself racing three years from then. I was thinking one, maybe two years, but here we are, already at the end of the second year looking at the third. We left it open because we didn’t know what we were going to do.
