Motolytics: Anaheim 2

Another week, more data, more drama, oh my.

Another week, more data, more drama, oh my.

 

Note: “Theoretical Best” is a combined time of a rider’s fastest segment times combined.

 

I’m just gonna start off with this. What is going on with Eli? It’s on everyone’s mind, and there has to be something happening there, right? He obviously has the speed, he was even fastest qualifier this weekend, and not only that, his qualifying time was the fastest of the day period, edging out Mcelraths fast lap in 250 Heat 1 on a fresh track (I say this with 96% confidence. Some of the data the AMA logs isn’t 100% accurate, I’m working on getting the useless stuff out of the way). His fastest theoretical lap was best of the day as well, meaning he put down great times in each segment in qualifying as well.

 

Side note to that, in the second qualy session, he was 12th fastest in segment 2 during the whole session, but the gap between him and Webb, who put in the fastest in that segment, was a mere 4 tenths. He even managed to move UP in his heat race, finishing 3rd after being 7th around the first turn, as well as putting in the second fastest lap behind Baggett’s. Everything seems to be going fine, each round, until the Main Event. Sure, he hasn’t won all of his heats or anything crazy, but the speed is still there and being beat straight up by guys like Anderson is not something that warrants a “What’s wrong with Eli?” reaction. The mains though, oh man the mains.

 

There are 2 graphs below, Eli’s lap times in the Mains from San Diego and A2 (I didn’t have things working for A1). Disregarding laps 10 through 15 at A2 due to Roczen being down, there is SIGNIFICANT drop off in his times throughout the race (big news, I know. Breaking stuff here). But look at lap 16 on, and you see he isn’t able to get near where his times were before the slow down again. I’ve included a comparison with Seely and Musquin to show how it’s back to business as usual with them as far as pace is concerned. Obviously not exactly equal due to changing track conditions, but they’re able to get much closer than Eli. Looking at the chart from San Diego, we again see significant dropping off in his times. They’re fine at the start, then anchors away (Sorry Eli). I’ve again added a comparison chart, this time including Seely and Anderson to compare. We aren’t expecting everyone to run their best times every lap, but this is just a visual affirmation of Eli’s pace being where it’s expected to be, with much more change throughout the race.

 

Of the “fast group” of guys (we’ll assume Dungey, Roczen, Anderson, Seely, Tomac, Musquin in this group), his difference of best to worst lap was 4.26 at San Diego, only Marvin bettering (or worsening?) him at 4.84, and a difference of 3.6 at Anaheim 2, while RD5, MM25, and CS14 all kept their differences in the low 2 range. On to the visuals…

 

Tomac’s Main Event Lap Times, San Diego

San Diego Main Event. Tomac: blue, Seely: red, Anderson: orange

Tomac’s Main Event Lap Times, Anaheim 2

Anaheim 2 Main Event. Tomac: blue, Seely: red

 

Be it arm pump or a deeper issue, who knows, and who knows if we’ll ever know. We know how riders like to play things close to their chest. I for one hope Eli can find his groove and get back in the mix of things where we all believe him to belong. It makes for much better racing, something we might need now in Roczen’s absence.

 

Another hot commodity leaving Anaheim 2 comes in the form of a guy named Justin Hill. I talked about Hill a little bit last week due to his blistering speed, and this week he proved it to be no fluke. Hill’s fastest lap in the 250 Main was a quick 56.269, and a theoretical best of 56.140. Something to take away from these two numbers side by side is since the difference between them is consistency. Sometimes we see guys who have a theoretical best that’s anywhere between 5/10ths and a full second off their actual fastest lap, meaning they were able to go fast in every segment of the track at least once, but this shows Hill being able to do it more often than not. Another noteworthy point is Hill’s fastest lap in the main, a 56.269, to the fastest lap in the 450 Main, Roczen’s 56.259.

 

I did see this brought up on Vital, and as ML512 mentioned, there had been 20 laps of racing put down on the track between when they put in their respective fast laps, but I still think this is nothing to scoff at. Whether you want to use it for your “450s are too much” debate is another story, but Hill has undoubtedly been fast. Let’s take a quick look at how his Main Event times stacked up to his competition… 

 

250 Main Top 4 lap times. Hill: blue, Plessinger: red, Mcelrath: orange, Forkner: green

 

Mcelrath was most consistent of the bunch. The difference between his best and worst laps was only 2.248 seconds, and Forkners best-average difference was .878. I point this out because it’s always impressive when someone is able to keep this number below 1, meaning their pace was incredibly consistent all race. So while he may not have been the fastest of the bunch on outright speed, I think it says something to be able to run the pace he was so closely all race, nevermind this being his first season in supercross. Josh Hansen was the only other rider to be able to keep this number below 1, with a difference of .795. 

 

The big news of the night came in the form of a nasty Roczen get off. Aside from being completely bummed to see a rider get hurt, it seems the hope for an exciting season has been almost completely deflated. We can only hope one of the other top guys can pick up their pace a tad and take it to Dunge. The race seemed to be shaping up nicely until that point, however. Roczen improved his laps each lap from 2 through 5, settling in to 4th behind Seely after being logged as 16th through the first corner (didn’t stay there long obviously, but that’s where they have him logged at across the line). Seely was running incredible pace as well, even putting in the second fastest lap of the race behind Roczen’s of a 56.368 on lap 8. There’s plenty of “what ifs” to be had, but the unfortunate outcome is known and it’s all speculation at this point. Let’s just hope Ken is able to make a full recovery, not just for the sake of our entertainment, but as fans of the sport who hate seeing anybody get injured, especially at that magnitude. 

 

Roczen vs Dungey lap times, Main Event

Roczen vs Seely lap times, Main Event

 

Mookie came back too! The trend of comparisons for his return was how would he do, and more specifically, I saw a few “will he do better than Webb” scenarios brought up. Webb and Mookie ran the 8th and 9th fastest laps in the Main, respectively. His theoretical best for the main was 9th fastest, so he was consistent in regards to his speed compared to the rest of the field. A spill in the whoops on lap 14 cost him a better finish, losing about 30 seconds. Combine his lap times, being able to take 2nd in his heat (battling with Anderson and Musquin until…well, you know) and it being his first race back in some time, I think he’s looking up. For fun, here’s how his times compared to Webb in the main. 

 

Mookie, blue, vs Webb, red, Main Event lap times

 

As a random note, let’s look at who moved forward and backward most in each of the mains. In the 250 Main, Tyler Bowers came across the holeshot line in 18th and finished 8th, moving up 10 spots. Hayden Mellross started 6th and didn’t finish if we want to count that, moving back 16 spots, or Killian Auberson is next, starting 7th and finishing 18th, moving back 11 spots.

In the 450 class, Marvin came through the first corner in 11th and finished second, up 9. Christophe Pourcel is logged as coming across the holeshot line in dead last, 22nd place, and finished 14th, moving up 8. Vince Friese got another good start, something we’ve almost come to expecet these days, coming around in 5th, but finished 16th, moving back 11 spots. The next biggest loss in positions was Tomac, across the line in 2nd and finishing back in 8th. This data is new and I’m still working out the best methods for accuracy, if even manually entering and changing some stuff, so hopefully we can start accumulating these as well as looking at the numbers throughout sessions for each rider to see what their typical race movement is. 

 

As always, thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed!