The fever pitch is pegged in the red… again.
The fever pitch is pegged in the red… again.
Lead Pic: James Lissimore
Unfortunately, this discussion is thrust to the forefront every single racing year. Sometimes it’s the closing weeks of preparation when riders succumb to injury before they even line up for the first round. Sometimes it is actually at the first round but whenever it happens, talks of rider safety instantly spring to life and they are heated to put it mildly.
I have long been one of the guys saying the power output of the bikes today far exceeds what should try to be contained in a stadium. Displacements need to be addressed. I still believe that but I’m not in any way trying to relate that subject to the incident which added Trey Canard and Jake Weimer to the “injured reserve” list of Supercross. That incident is as probable as it is unfortunate. It’s just part of the assumed risk that a rider accepts when they commit to racing dirt bikes at the highest level.
That crash could have taken place on 125cc two strokes just the same as it did on 450cc thumpers. It was a technical rhythm, yes but it was not a death defying horsepower hungry quad that demanded a balls to horsepower ratio. Simply put, there was a split second where Jake’s forward progress was stunted due to whatever; could have been mental, mechanical, wheel-spin, anything— the consequence of that hiccup was an abbreviated rhythm in traffic and Trey Canard had no opportunity to do anything other than what resulted. It sucks, especially for two of the straightest dudes in the pits who are exactly how they present themselves.
Some people want to blame the track and I can understand that point of view to some extent. The first rhythm was high speed, like everything you can muster, out of a slower start straight than we typically see. Achieving the level of momentum needed out of the first turn where riders are so accustomed to pinching in and protecting the inside created a pretty flammable situation through the first rhythm. Some guys are going to give it all they got and attempt to nail that first rhythm right off the start to achieve some breathing room into rhythm-two, even after pinching in on the inside first turn and here’s where it gets flammable— many riders will not. This creates a twitchy situation where riders are at a heightened level of alertness in case they need to divert around someone who may falter ahead of them or simply not take the risk. In regard to Jake and Trey, they had already navigated the first rhythm and Trey, rightfully, expected the second rhythm to be business as usual but it just so happened that that nasty little calculated risk was brought in from the bullpen and those guys both paid for it, dramatically.
The technicality of those two first rhythms, combined with a short start straight into a high speed first rhythm could be skewed into a point of blame for some but these are the best guys at the trade on earth and in my eyes, it’s just a super unfortunate result of the calculated risk these guys assumed long ago.
When Trey Canard exits turn two and see’s the 12 of Jake Weimer ahead, he ticks a little mental note in his head saying “I can trust this guy”. The flip side of that coin is, it’s racing. Nothing can be assumed because nothing can be trusted. People, machines, track conditions… All of them are changing, progressing, regressing, breaking down in millisecond increments; infinitely. THAT is the calculated risk and what makes the choice these guys make to line up so effing gnarly. Many nights, they escape with their health, some nights they enjoy the rewards of success but sometimes, the Tax Man’s cousin, the Calculated Risk Collector comes knocking and he takes what he wants. He doesn’t care who you are, how many times you’ve rebounded from adversity or how right you live. He only knows that your signature is on the dotted line of his contract and that signature is penned in red with every leg you throw over the seat and twist that throttle… on any size, stroke, or track.
