Cool. I'll try to be there. Lots of time to plan http://www.cyclenews.com/590/22722/Racing-Article/Motocross-of-Nations-To-Glen-Helen.aspx
the last time unofficial kinda makeup event thingy after the major fail at the other location was really cool.
Cool and I certainly hope they pull no punches when designing the track. Lets give the competition some quad downhill jumps and everything else our guys race on every week and see how they like that as compared to the tracks they ride. Maybe leave the track all rutted out between all motos ...
Ray_ray : I suggest you go back and look at the comments from your teams riders from the last 2 years, regarding the difficulty / roughness of the MX Des Nations tracks. Barcia, I think, said Teutschenthal was the gnarliest surface he'd ridden on. Me, I just didn't see it as being particularly rough, but hey, he rode it. You blokes must ride some seriously groomed tracks in your Nationals, for him to have thought it was so very gnarly. I hope they keep to the "non freeway" ethos for Kegums next year - I've been there for 2 GPs, though it seems to have lost a lot of sand, in the last couple of years. That will be a help to your team. Me, I hope they chew the hell out of the surface, and bring back the softer stuff. As for uphills / downhills and jumps thereon - once again, look at various GP / European tracks. You may well learn something. The track variety in GPs / International races and European / Brit National series, is enormous. Euro Tracks at GPs / the MX Des Nations, get minimal grooming, though it differs largely from track to track. Some of the sand based tracks, get quite a 'clean up' on sections of the course, because they tear to hell in next to no time. Minimal grooming - for safeties sake. This Is Motocross, people, and that needs to be remembered by a few. Leave BS, artificial tracks / obstacles to the circus that is SX. MX, would be better for much of the SX influence, to be given the flick. I think it's a great thing that Glen Helen has got it - though they've moved it back 2 years. Mainly because it gives Bud Feldcamp & Co a good chance at making some money. The man / the track deserve this great chance at a great event. Even with Luongo the Drongo, basically waiving his outragious fees for the GPs, the failure for the people "from the hotbed of MX", both domestic riders and spectators, in turning up at the 2 GPs there, must have hurt BFs / Glen Helens finances. I've been to GH, quite a few times, and it's not particularly impressive. Fun to ride - yes - but I find most reasonable MX tracks to be that. You blokes need to get out, a hell of a lot more. It's just another Southern California, dried up hell hole. Don't get too offended by that - we here in Australia have a hell of a lot of burnt out hell holes of tracks, too. I spent a good part of my younger years, riding on 'hell hole tracks' - well , I still do.
Truth is spoken, i wonder if the American team will show up or if it is beneath their dignity like the GP a few yrs. ago. If you go back to the 70's and 80's European tracks you'll see just what a rider Brad Lackey was. Now it's all about the cash. Having rode Carlsbad in the 70's i can't see the modern scooter pilot doing anything but whining. Bring back natural tracks.Just sayin........
Yes, things have changed since the 70's! That said the modern riders are still freaking studs and not pansies like painted here. American MX and SX is a nice group of international riders putting on a show on the big stage for us all. I find watching the rutted up sand races in Europe boring to watch. Maybe it is just me. Recorded it several times just to turn it off mid way. Now SX and MX gets me all fired up and yelling at the TV. The Amazing crap they pull off, the crazy passes, the rubbing, love it all. This is simply entertainment like B-ball or any other sport. It is huge and everyone wants some. I think they are doing just fine thank you. Love to watch it, love the riders from all countries and just feel it is a good time I look forward to every year.
MotoMar36 - the truth is right there. It is arrogant of people to think that "their" track (s) are daunting to others. It shows they really don't look out towards what is happening out there, other than in their own little world. Note that when I 'criticized' GH, I very openly brought in the 'burnt out hell holes' of my own country - well, my own local tracks. Much of what I ride, is like so many So. Cal. tracks - dry, ugly area'd places. That I don't have much 'reverence' for GH - well, that's how I have found it. A Fun track, that very much has a bloke like me's, measure. But an MX Heaven - hell no. Hell, I got to ride at Carlsbad in the late 90s / very early 2000s, and I'd describe that as a burnt out hell hole - but I loved the times I rode there, having seen it on film and in mags since the 70s. As Pat Ohara said, can you imagine the reaction of many riders / teams now, if they were required to race on such a surface. Or, a place like Saddleback. Motosportz : you seemto think I'm painting modern riders as pansies? Not in the slightest. But, they are just fast motorcycle riders, that is all. Comments like Ray_rays seem to imply that GP riders might be 'pansies' that couldn't handle GH, with its couple of hills and quads. Childs play, for the majority of them, just look to the variety in the GP / European tracks. What your riders Do have more experience with, is SX. It's that most American of motorcycle sports. And, when a rider such as Barcia cites Teutschethal as being so "gnarly', it might be an indication that SX and track grooming, has become far to much a part of MX. Just check the various interviews with Barcia and Tomac from Teutschenthal - Dungey was fairly quiet at the Nations - yet, still, I think, the highest, overall scoring US rider? US fans and press seemed to have wanted to "throw him under a bus" the last 2 years. He just came up against better riders, on those particular days, on each weekends of racing, at those times and places. That Barcia in particular, decribed little old Teutschenthal as being one of the "gnarliest" of tracks he'd raced on, has to make me wonder at the smoothness of US National tracks - not that I see them as being anything but hard, hard work. Excuses, perhaps? MotoMarc36 - I guess it just the hight of arrogance (yes, I've been to Teutschethal, 3 times now) when I've made the effort, spent my money, got the jobs that have enabled me to get to many GPs, 5 MX Des Nations now, and quite a few US Nationals and SXs over many years. It's called making an effort, and going out into the world. Try it - you will broaden your horizons. I could take the attitude that some would, citing ACs 1:1, 1:1 of the last 2 years as him being the "greatest", but, I would never do so. I judge him on his years of racing. Yet, so many have slagged him when he's been crashed out, injured, crashed himself out, had things on his mind such as his mothers death the week prior to the '11 MX Des. Even with all the various travails he's had at the MX Des Nations - I'm pretty sure he's won more motos there than any current rider.
I'm not really a MX guy, but grew up as it blossomed in the US. I live 2 hours away from "Hallowed Ground".... Unadilla. I have been lucky to see some great MX racing there. I've never raced MX there myself, but have raced the GNCC there and got to ride the Gravity Cavity, Screw You and other parts of the National track. Pretty cool! Broome-Tioga is my local track and I saw Nationals there in the day, but Unadilla is the real thing. For some reason, I'm always more drawn to MXGP's, than AMA Nationals. I always wanted to go to the Citadel (no longer used) and other great tracks in Europe. There is just a quality to it, I just like for some reason. I've never been to another National track, other than Unadilla and Broome, so who am I to say anything.....
We will (expect again) to see something just like this. We were there for this one, the steep down hill into the valley then back to the 2 huge uphill doubles was really insane. BT101 brought his A game on that day! View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zpWxRPJ_Ss View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEY6v9FRF0s
Let's not forget that it will also be the opening round of 2014 AMA motocross!! Great that it is back on the schedule.
So true and this is not ama racing in the pic, but it is Bobby Garrison (#928) pushing the down button on the express-elevation to the bottom at GH. I like seeing American PROs routinely ride courses that are frightening for me to even view from my safe and ~some-what comfortable couch. If Client was directing this racing ...He'd say something like: "Do you really want on this express, down elevator? Well, do ya, punk? Make my day". -- My 08 WR250cc Husky pays a little homage to this GH World 2-stroke Champion... My bike is a long ways from perfect shape but, you know, its a perfect bike for riding here in my present location.
If you look at the background that picture is a little tilted. I have ridden GH and it is very intimidating but not really scary just big. I suck at MX but the pros made it look EZ. Fun to watch.
been up and down all those hills many times there its a real terrain course for sure, I felt comfortable enough to keep pinned all the way around turn one talladega,, but that was about it!! oh yea of course on the uphills as well. Its a wicked course puts alot of weight into the front end in alot of spots very taxing on those bottom g outs coming off the hills.
We have been going to GH for 20 yrs. My boys grew up there. I will be there this weekend for the Pro-Am. Wife and I have been doing for years when we are in country. It is actually a fun course with the hills. I will not be the fastest this weekend, but you will be hard pressed to find someone having more fun than me.
