In case you didn't get a chance to catch the race report from this weekend's Monster Energy AMA/FIM Supercross at AT&T Park in San Francisco or the next-day High-def coverage on CBS, you missed probably one of the muddiest races in quite a long time.
After raining for a straight week leading up to the race, the rain let up during the day, allowing for an abbreviated practice schedule, but by the time the Lites main event lined up, the skies opened up again, dumping a tremendous amount of water on the already damp track. In case you missed the race report, below is a link to it as well as photos. We also threw in a few other pieces of news to get you caught up on everything that went down at the city by the bay.
Now that you're all caught up, read on to learn about everything else that happened over the weekend. We're sure you won't be disappointed.
Like we said, leading up to the race, the rain was nearly relentless, making things very difficult for Dirt Wurx. Luckily, they were able to get the track built on Tuesday during a break in the weather and got it covered before the major rain hit. The problem was, though, that the rain just pooled up all around the track. To help alleviate this, Dirt Wurx and Live Nation worked around the clock on Friday night to pump the water off the racing surface and outside of the stadium. To help further with the mud, most of the racing surface was constructed out of road base dirt, which consists mainly of small rocks, while the jump faces were made from clay. The dirt helped to soak up the water, and during practice there was even a corner that dry dirt could be seen.
So what did most of the riders think about the conditions? Most were optimistic about the rain and mud, saying that everyone has to ride in it, and it makes for an interesting evening. The people that we wondered about the most and who have to do even more work when the conditions were as muddy as they were, were the mechanics. While strolling through the pits during the three extra hours we had since practice was postponed, we spoke with a few of them to get their take on how they set their riders' bikes up for the muck.
Jamie Ellis, the mechanic for Nick Wey's Team MDK/Factory KTM450SX-F gave us an in-depth look at what he does to prepare the number 27 bike for a night like this last Saturday. This is what he had to say...
"I talked to the track crew a little bit just to get an idea of what is going on. Maybe the rain will drain into some of the low spots, but all the berms and everything else will be generally good," Ellis said. "The track guys this week told me that even walking on the berms is like walking through soup, so it's going to be a pretty crazy situation. You can pretty much image all the water that's in and on the track is going to come up when it splashes or riders hit it and whatnot. First off, you have to be on the ball with the air-box, making sure everything has a place where it can drain."
"We'll probably run a different air filter this week," Ellis said. "Normally we run a Supercross airfilter which is a little bit thinner and generally gives the bike a little bit more power, because you're not dealing with dirt, dust and mud. But this week we'll switch back to a more traditional standard outdoor style airfilter that won't just let water straight through. Also, it's really important to run petroleum-based filter oil instead of a biodegradable style like we normally use. When the water hits it, it doesn't just wash away and go straight into the carburetor. I'll actually run two of my carb vent hoses upward, that way, incase everything else gets covered in mud from being just smashed in there, it still has a way to vent and prevent the bike from vapor locking."
"As you can see here, we normally put some kind of inner tube here on the surroundings of the pegs," Ellis said as he pointed at the pegs. "Some other teams have metal ones made, which I don't know how keen I am on those just yet, only because once a rock gets in, there's no way of getting it out. At least with the rubber you can take it off, wash it real good, take the peg off, get all the mud and rocks out, put it back in, put the rubber back on, and it will have more of a flex. That way it's not just a shield, it actually flexes and moves with the peg."
"Foam, you want to put foam where you can," Ellis said. "You don't want to put foam anywhere it could possibly come off and ruin something. You'll see some guys that go crazy on the foam everywhere, but if you can put it somewhere that can possibly endanger the bike or cause a DNF, you've got to be smart and not do that. I'll probably go with minimal foam in the first practice just in the areas I believe it's needed-like where the skid plate is and stuff like that. But as far as putting it on the shifter and giving it more of an opportunity to go into the sprocket, I'm really not too keen on that at the moment. I'll have a better idea of what I want to do after the first practice."
"Nick likes to run a light grip tape on the air-box, only because he grips the bike so hard with his legs," Ellis said. "Usually, it will look like a beaver went through my air-box from Nick's knee braces; you can pretty much count on needing a new seat cover every week. This week I installed a bump twelve inches from the back under Nick's seat cover. Basically, all the bump is, is a Renthal crossbar pad that I've cut, shaped, formed, and glued to the seat so it doesn't slide or move. Sometimes you put them on and they can shift under the seat cover, so it's a good idea to put some duct tape over the bump under the cover to make sure it doesn't move. If you make sure that the bump is good and sturdy, it pretty much acts like a saddle, so when the guy's legs are like a Flying-W going down the straightaway he has something to push against to keep him from sliding completely off."
"With the grips on the bars, you might want to think about switching to a half or a full waffle grip," Ellis said. "Right now, Nick runs a full diamond, and if you get any kind of mud or anything caked into the grips, you're going to need some kind of surface to still grab on. I still have to talk to Nick about it, because they are a little bit bigger, and it changes the riders' comfort level. You'll see some guys switch to a traditional full waffle, just to have a little more grip on the bars."
"We'll use hand guards," Ellis said. "There will probably be some rocks, which is usual for San Francisco. They will also help keep some of the mud off of the grips. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Don't do anything that might injure your guy, but be more than prepared, have a plan and go with it."
After taking in what Jamie had to say, we decided to cruise around the pits while the sun was still out and the rain was holding off to ask some of the other top mechanics to give us the lowdown on what they do to prepare for these conditions.
"If there is a lot of standing water on the track, we try to tape up a lot of places on the bike where water could possibly get into the carburator," Fallons said. "Mainly the airbox, we try to channel the water away to where it will drain out and not steer towards the airfilter and wind up in the carburetor."
"Basically, this tape job is to keep a lot of the water and the mud out of the engine and skid plate area," Schnikey said. "Just trying to protect the motorcycle, the engine side mostly."
"One thing we do is try to keep the most mud off the bike as possible without putting too much foam in there for heat," Rambert said. "We want to keep the thing cool, because obviously when it gets muddy the bikes run hot."
"We try to keep as much water as we can out of the air-box, so we do some taping around the backside of the air-box to keep water from getting in there," Gosselaar said as he showed off his tape job. "Other than that, we just put a little foam here and there to keep rocks from getting built up somewhere-like between the brake lever. Not too much other stuff, maybe a coolant recovery tank on there for the radiator. Pretty much, that's about it."
Team Red Bull Honda probably had the most attention to detail when it came to mud set up. The red bikes had solid rotors, mud tires, foam everywhere, sealed off airboxes, ridged seats, and metal mesh covering the large radiators. Davi Millsaps' mechanic Carlos Rivera explained some of the mods to us. "At Anaheim One, I ran this metal radiator mesh on Davi's bike and everyone liked it, so now the entire team runs it. We used to use panty hoes, but they don't hold up for a whole race. This works much better."
As pretty as the bikes were, though, after the night show, they would more than likely be unrecognizable. "It's sad the amount of parts that we are going to have to throw out. This entire bike will probably be trashed by the end of the night," Carlos said as he looked at Davi's CRF450R.
The riders also had their own set ups went it came to their gear. Many of them ran foam on their helmets to keep the mud from building up. During the rainy main events, they also ran roll offs rather than the standard tear off system. Some also had towels tucked into the back of their pants incase of a fall. The towels helped immensely with cleaning off muddy gloves.
After James Stewart's surprise withdraw from the series last weekend at Anaheim II, Team Monster Kawasaki was only fielding Timmy Ferry out of their semi this weekend. In a press release sent out the day of the race, though, it was announced that they were actively seeking another rider to fill in for Stewart during the Supercross season. The big rumor right now is that Travis Preston will be getting that spot on the green team. We quizzed a few Kawasaki race team members about it at the race, and they would neither deny nor confirm the rumor. Adding further fuel to the rumor is the fact that Racer X is reporting that Preston will be testing with the team this week, so he can make a return to racing at Anaheim III this coming weekend. Stay tuned to Motocross.com for further news on this. As soon as we hear the final decision, we'll post it here.
Another team that was short a rider was Team Gibbs Racing Yamaha. According to the team, Josh Hansen crashed during the week while testing. There was no word on whether or not Hansen would be returning to racing at the next round in Anaheim or if he would be missing more than one round.
Also while we are on the subject of riders getting injured, Team Rockstar Makita Suzuki's David Vuillemin possible hurt his knee during the Supercross class main event. In one of the muddy, rutty turns it appeared that DV twisted his right knee. Once that happened, he exited the track, and limped away to get it checked out by the Asterisk Mobile Medic Crew. No word yet on how serious his injury is.
One rider that has been noticeable off during the West Coast Lites series is Team Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/Honda's Chris Gosselaar. After separating his shoulder right before Christmas, Goose has been trying to ride through the pain and has slowly been getting back up to speed. Be sure to check back tomorrow for a full interview with the Troy Lee Designs rider.
The muddy conditions seem to always play in the favor of a few riders, and one of them is Team MDK KTM's Nick Wey. The last time the San Francisco race was a mudfest, Wey managed to get on the podium in third aboard his then privateer MDK-backed Honda. This weekend, after struggling at the first three rounds, Wey finally put it all together, turning in a very respectable seventh place finish-his best of the season so far.
Another rider that obviously likes the muddy conditions was Chad Reed. After having some bad luck in the mud during previous years, Chad finally put a solid race together and dominated the main event. After a poor start, he worked his way up, passed numerous riders, and took the lead. "I just wanted to attack the track," Reed said. "Once I did the triple on the back, it was all kind of over. I just started taking time out of the other guys' [Windham and Millsaps] lap times, and then they started making mistakes. It was a good feeling. It's always hard in a mud race, because you don't have any idea of where anyone is. I never really knew the size of my lead. I really wanted to win in the mud. I've had some bad results in the mud, and I just really wanted to go out there and have some fun with it. I mean, once it started raining, I was excited."
As for second place finishing Kevin Windham, Reed had this to say. "I think this is kind of '04 all over again-someone drops out with a knee injury, and then it's me and K-Dub battling. He's been riding really strong. I think that if I had been in a heat race with him, he would have beaten me."
In the Lites class, the mud certainly shook things up a bit, as Jason Lawrence got his first-ever win. As for the championship points leader, Ryan Dungey, he had a rough race. After a bad start, Dungey struggled, but in the end crossed the line in seventh. The poor finish didn't affect his points lead, though, as he still sits on top with four rounds left to run. One rider that rode really well was Tommy Hahn. Hahn has been struggling so far this season, but at San Francisco managed turn a great start into a podium finish. It was Hahn's first podium this year.
That's about it from San Francisco. Be sure to check back throughout the week for the latest news and interviews. We will also be back next weekend for coverage of the fifth round of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series. Have a good week!
Courtesy of MotoCross.com
