I’m gonna be totally honest with you, I found very little of interest regarding the racing in Indianapolis. This was the standard fallout from a ho hum track which saw next to zero in terms of options. It was such a one lined track that there was hardly even any risk taking pass opportunities taken because the percentage for risk vs reward was highly tilted in the #failzone. See Cooper Webb’s “St.Patricks Day lucky save of the race” pass on Tomac for example 1a. And no that should not have been penalized, he wasn’t intending to cut the corner nor did he gain anything other than maybe a few ounces of Hershey Squirts in his Thor pants.
We all know the start of a race is hugely important but on a track like we saw in Indy, it (combined with the riders ability to avoid mistakes and keep pace) was everything. It may sound like I’m diminishing Marvin’s win a bit and I guess I am but not at all with intent. Blake was all over him, Cooper was coming and going, Eli was being Eli again (confused emoji) and Ken let on this week that he has something going on with him that’s got even him a little confused in regards to a lack of endurance and energy. This last part is honestly the most compelling thing to come out of Indy in my mind. I don’t think it comes as any kind of epiphany to those of us who are paying attention. Kenny really hasn’t looked like the Kenny of earlier in the season. He’s just lacked that fire in recent rounds. It honestly started with the “closest finish in Supercross history” and while I don’t believe it is an “A leading to B” situation based on the deflating effects of that failed capitalization of a Win, there’s no way in hell that it helped him. I think this just comes down to working too hard and hitting a wall. Hopefully it’s just a mid-season lull that he can equally as quickly crest and continue on. The win drought has now hit 2 years and 2 months and I really don’t think that number comes with any gravity on the shoulders of Ken. Of course he wants to put it to bed because then everyone will stop talking about if “he’s the same guy he was before his injury”. I don’t think Ken has a monkey on his back at all regarding this issue. It’s more a case of everyone else in the media has their own little monkey that they walk around with and that Media-Monkey is just always staring at Ken hooting and hollering… and of course throwing monkey shit everywhere. Ken knows he can win. In their hearts, the fans all know he can win too. Everybody does. He just hasn’t yet. It’s like an unfinished math equation that’s super easy to solve but just hasn’t been yet.
But there is that little part about it actually needing to be solved in order to become reality. You know why? Because for a few years now there has also been an equally obvious equation that is also not yet solved… in reality it may be inching closer to becoming unsolvable. Eli Tomac becoming Supercross Champion. This was a foregone conclusion two years ago… and yet here we sit, more confused than ever and asking ourselves if one plus one really does equal two?
