WORDS: DAVEY COOMBS
PHOTOS: RACER X ARCHIVES

FOR A STRETCH OF A LITTLE more than three weeks in June, Monster Energy AMA Supercross set up a new summer home inside Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City in order to complete its 2020 season, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus brought the series to a standstill in March. Seven races were yet to be run, and series organizer Feld Entertainment came up with a bold plan to go into a sort of residency in Utah where everyone would be isolated from potential virus carriers, tested often, and able to complete the series. With the grandstands virtually empty save for a few dozen family and staff members (as well as a couple hundred cardboard cutouts of some of the sport’s most enthusiastic followers), it was a surreal conclusion to what had promised to be one of the biggest and most competitive series ever, a nationwide tour that was now packed into a single empty stadium for a global television audience. It was also a reminder of how far “stadium motocross” had come since it was effectively born back in 1972, supposedly on the back of a cocktail napkin in a lounge bar near its first home, the venerable Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.