It's official-the first-ever National to be held at night is now in the record books, and for the most part it was a success. In case you missed the live coverage right here on Motocross.com or the live broadcast on the SPEED Channel, you missed quite a show under the lights at Thunder Valley Raceway in Lakewood, Colorado. But if you want to see or hear the broadcast again, just click the links below and get caught up. Right now, we're going to dive right into What Really Happened at Thunder Valley.
It goes without saying that the biggest news of the event was the fact that it was the first National to be held at night. Normally, this race is one of the hottest most physically demanding races on the tour for the riders, but with it being held at night, the heat factor was reduced significantly. From the outside looking in, it seemed like a great idea; the riders would get a break from the heat, the spectators could watch without the sun pounding down, and the sport would be taken to a new level with primetime live coverage on the internet and TV. In the end, the endeavor was well received by largely everyone-the attendance was high, lots of people watched the race live on both the television and the Internet, and most of the riders liked the idea of a nighttime National. There was just one little hold up for most riders-there weren't enough lights.
Following Friday night practice, numerous smaller portable lights were put in place in key spots on the track to help brighten things up slightly. And to help with the safety factor, the track was heavily groomed before each moto to keep it from getting too rough and gnarly. In the end, like we said, it was still a little dark, and the point of views of the race were slightly different between James Stewart and Mike Alessi, the top-two Motocross class racers. "I think the night race is cool. I think a lot of people are against it, because of the lighting," Stewart said. "I think the lighting could have been better, but you have to spice up the sport sometimes and do something different. We've been racing on Sundays for years now, and I think it was cool. I think the fans really appreciated it, and I really like it because we get a Sunday off. I think if they put more lights out there, we'll be good." As for Alessi, here's what he had to say. "I thought the track layout was awesome-the dirt was great," Alessi said. "I thought that the lighting wasn't that great. There were a lot of shadows on the bumps, especially with the speed that James and I are riding at. I hope they don't ever do this again. I didn't like it at all."
While we are on the subject of the night race, Team Red Bull Honda's third-place finisher Davi Millsaps apparently has trouble seeing at night "When I went to school back in the day, I was playing Basketball and a varsity baseball player threw a tennis ball at me and it hit me in my eye," Millsaps said. "I lost 20 percent of my vision and got a scar on my retina. Ever since then I haven't been able to see at night." Despite the little set back, The Duke still managed to go 4-3 to beat his teammate and hometown favorite Andrew Short for third overall.
The lights at the track weren't the only new features for a National. Since it was held at night, a lot of the same features of Supercross were brought in to make the show just a little better for fans. Among the new features was a jumbotron so fans could watch the action on the other side of the track-this was actually there last year-a full stage where a band played during intermission, and pyrotechnics that went off at the start and finish of each race. All of these things made the race just that much more fun for everyone. As a small side note, this race is one of the few that is sponsored by Red Bull as Monster Energy, for the most part, has a lock on the series. The doghouse on the startline was wrapped in Red Bull colors and the Red Bull Airforce skydived in during opening ceremonies.
While we are talking about new features of the track we might as well mention the new gear that a lot of the riders were sporting at Thunder Valley. Shift's new 2009 line will likely be in stores in about a month, and the company had all their riders decked out in the cool new threads for both motos. "We're really pumped on the new colorways," Shift's Rob Salcedo said. "We waited until now to unveil it, because we wanted to make sure it was available to the public when they saw it for the first time." No Fear was also showing off some of their new '09 gear as the Geico Powersports/Honda riders were wearing it for the entire weekend. And lastly, Thor-which has actually had their riders wearing some of the '09 gear since Glen Helen-had numerous riders wearing their newest offerings. Villopoto was even sporting the company's new helmet, which will be available in the coming months.
Colorado marked the return for many riders on the circuit, as roughly five or so riders came back from either injury or a long hiatus from the Nationals. So who were the riders? Geico Powersports/Honda's Trey Canard and Josh Grant, Red Bull Honda's Ivan Tedesco, and former Grand Prix star Team Yamaha of Troy's Mike Brown. For Canard, he sat out High Point due to a concussion he suffered at the round before in Texas. Like always, Canard rode well and finished fourth overall after-once again-climbing his way back up to the front of the pack in both motos. Brown on the other hand, in his first race aboard the YOT bike has sort of been testing while he races, and performed remarkable well, posting 12-6 moto scores for ninth overall.
Bad luck continues to haunt one of the guys on our list of riders returning to action-Tedesco. Since returning to action at the second round of the series at Hangtown, Hot Sauce has crashed and hurt his ankle at every race since his third-place performance at Hangtown. At Thunder Valley, the Honda rider twisted his ankle again when it got caught on the ground in a fast sweeper turn. Word is that he will likely be sitting out the next few races, however, this isn't official and we'll keep you posted on his condition.
Finally, of the riders that came back to racing, Grant performed the best. Since getting landed on and suffering a bad concussion at the final Supercross in Vegas, Grant has been sitting on the sidelines waiting to get the clearance from his doctor to ride. In his first race back, Grant finished second overall, and nearly won the second moto after an intense battle with currently points leader and defending champion Ryan Villopoto. "I just started working out a couple weeks ago, and got three or four days of riding in this week. I just felt good enough to come out and ride," Grant said. "It was a good comeback for me, and I'm just really excited to get a good result for my team. I just want to do it again next weekend."
The excellent ride wasn't the only news surrounding Grant throughout the weekend, though, as him and Villopoto got into it a little during the first practice of the weekend on Friday. In that practice, Grant played around a little with RV, throwing a Heel-Clicker right in front of him and racing with the Kawasaki rider every chance he got. Following the practice, the two riders exchanged some heated words, but blows were never thrown. We snapped the below photo of the Heel-Clicker, and when we showed it to Grant, he just laughed. When each rider was asked about the altercation during the post-race press conference, they said something to the effect of, "What are you talking about?" With a smirk on their faces of course.
One rider had a nasty crash this weekend was Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Ryan Dungey. After his third-place performance in the first Lites class moto, Dungey crashed hard at the bottom of a high-speed downhill section on the first lap of the second moto. To get some more info on Dungey's condition, we spoke with his agent Tony Gardea following the race and he said that it looks like Ryan will be ok. Following the crash, it appeared that Dungey was spitting up blood. He was taken to the local hospital to be checked out and it was determined that he had bit his tongue in the nasty crash and possibly bruised a lung. If all goes well, Ryan should be back at Red Bud next weekend. Just as we were writing up this week's WRH we received a letter from Dungey. You can check it out by clicking here.
In addition to being the fifth round of the AMA Toyota Motocross Championships, Thunder Valley also played host to the third round of the WMA series, and yet again, Red Bull Honda's Ashley Fiolek took overall honors ahead of Sherri Cruse and defending champion Jessica Patterson. With the win-her second of the season-Fiolek extended her points lead.
Now, like we do every week, here are a few random bits of news before we wrap up this week's edition of WRH...
-James Stewart got engaged to his long-time girlfriend during the off-weekend last week. "I think I answered the questions of everyone that said I was done after all that happened," Stewart said of his win this weekend. "It was cool. We had a weekend off-and that was the problem-I sat around too much [laughs]. It was an exciting weekend." If you're wondering why you never knew he even had a girlfriend, it's because she likes to stay out of the limelight and you'll rarely see her out and about in the pits.
-Jason Lawrence probably had a race that he would rather forget. He went 14-34 for 19th overall.
-We had an awesome rental car this weekend. Well... maybe not, but all you Fast and Furious fans, eat your heart out!
-Team Monster Energy Kawasaki was running some special white Monster Energy graphics for this race only.
-Team Yamaha's newest recruit Sean Hamblin rode his first race for the team and finished a very respectable seventh overall. Read about his day in BDW's blog right here. We'll also have a full video interview with him tomorrow.
-Austin Stroupe crashed out of both motos. In the first moto, his bike came to rest right where everyone landed off a downhill jump. The result was numerous riders landing on his bike, and him being forced to pull out of the race.
-Atomic Racing/Fox's Paul Carpenter attempted to return to action at Lakewood, however, a nagging injury forced him to sit it out after Friday practice.
-The Electronic Fuel Injection on Mike Alessi's Rockstar/Makita/Suzuki worked awesome at altitude. "We came here not knowing what to expect with the EFI and we didn't have to do any changes to it at all," Alessi said. "It's pretty much the same set up that I ride with at a sea-level track. No problems at all."
That's about it from Colorado. Next week, we'll be coming to you from Red Bud Track ‘N Trail for the sixth round of the series. In the meantime, be sure to continue to check back here on Motocross.com and live.motocross.com for regular updates throughout the week. See you at the races!
Courtesy of MotoCross.com
