We are professional sport with lingering amateurish policies which continue to affect results.
We are professional sport with lingering amateurish policies which continue to affect results.
Lead Photo By: Spikman
As the racing wound down in Detroit this weekend, it seemed like just another round of the series with the 250 red number plate changing bikes again and Ryan Dungey getting back to winning.
The track layout was pretty good, offered passing options and multiple methods for negotiating the technical rhythm sections scattered throughout Ford Field. The broken apart whoop section was just about the most challenging obstacle I’ve seen thrown at the four hundred and fifty cubic centimeter dirt bike since it’s inception. They were down-right (or is it straight-up?) nasty! They were inconsistently spaced, varying heights, long, separated into two sets and got cupped out quickly. Every rider struggled with them at some point during the night and most of them struggled on the majority of the laps they completed.
The rhythm lanes offered options that pretty much every top rider experimented with with the exception of two. Justin Brayton and Marvin Musquin pulled something out of their bag of tricks that no one else mustered the gonads to attempt. Justin Brayton uncorked a massive triple out of the corner before the finish line which had him landing on the downside of the single after the table. He did it twice in practice before that tough block took a bite out of him and put an end to his qualifying for the night. Musquin channeled his inner Travis Pastrana pulling out a super smooth wheel tap on the top of the single that Brayton was downsizing after that same table.
Musquin’s tactic was both gnarlier and faster but it bit him just like so many imagined it would and he decided it wasn’t worth the “down side” of messing it up again. He fell in line with the higher success rate method which most of the front-runners had already committed to.
In addition to the obstacles being a step higher in technicality this week, the dry Detroit dirt brought an unusually slick surface to the table as well. Local’s know, that dirt looked beat compared to what we see natively on tracks around here. It looked like they trucked in the dirt that was scraped off of Lake Elsinore a few years back. The track actually held up quite well other than the whoops cupping out so quickly but that surface was hard, slick and looked to be silting.
Slick surfaces led to many flags waving and perplexingly, many of the flags waving were white with Red Crosses on them instead of solid yellow. Who would have thought that in 2016 flagging would still be such a contentious issue in Supercross? Something is definitely getting lost in translation when the default flag following a crash is a Red Cross flag instead of a Yellow caution so often at an event. Even more curious is how the series handles the flagging personnel with such clumsy management. Of all the topics and issues I’ve seen teams, riders and managers crying for a Rider’s Union (Yes, the gong was just hammered) over the years, the handling of flags and flagger personnel appointment is, in my opinion, the most pressing argument.
A flagger’s split-second decision, and possibility for error and failure, have a direct effect on results and by extension prize money, bonuses, income, titles… everything. And these guys are completely unaccountable because from one week to another they selected from the local enthusiasts. I mean really?
There is no doubt that you all have seen the video’s Chad Reed posted this morning to his Instagram highlighting times during the night in Detroit when red Cross flags were prematurely or unnecessarily waved and riders ignored them. The riders have a real gripe here and Chad noted them pretty comprehensively in his Instagram post. In most instances, these riders can see when a rider is down ahead of them. Many times they witness the rider in the act of crashing and when they anticipate a yellow flag based on past experience but are surprised with a grossly ill-advised Red Cross flag, the fire is turned up and the guys waving the flags are put to the flames.
This week Ryan Dungey had a win taken away hours after a race for this exact situation occurring. How much longer is such a detrimental facet of the racing results handled with winter mittens as opposed to the sterile surgical gloves it should be.
Staffing a crew of sole flaggers for the series introduces it’s own aspect of expense hurdles, but it’s obvious to me that bringing in a crew of enthusiasts for a one day coach up and execution of this important task in a series such as Supercross is utterly laughable.
Are we professional or just painting on a pretty face?
