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A LITTLE HELP?

The very first gate drop of the 2021 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship happened at Fox Raceway in Pala, California, but it wasn’t one of the actual motos. Rather, it was the Saturday morning 250 Class Last Chance Qualifier. One rider—Redlands, California’s Max Groom—went down on his #959 Chrysler Works–sponsored KTM 250 SX-F and found himself stuck under his bike. Coming up behind him was the Grindstone-backed #610 KTM of Hemet’s Nicolas Gonzalez. Seeing that a fellow racer was obviously stuck under his bike, Gonzalez stopped and dropped his own bike to help Groom. It all but assured that Gonzalez was not going to qualify for the national—they only take the top four out of the four-lap sprint—but it did make for an instant friendship between the two riders involved. It also caught the eye of privateer photographer Dan Acosta, one of the few shooters out there for the 250 LCQ, who also posts his shots of privateer heroes like this on his Instagram feed @cycledump. We wanted to re-run Acosta’s image of this almost completely overlooked moment in the magazine to give Nicolas Gonzalez recognition for such a selfless act in the middle of a moto. As for Max Groom, one week later he made the cut for the 250 Class motos at Thunder Valley. Here’s hoping they get together again soon, only this time it’s in a main event and neither guy goes down!