Last month, I headed over to the AMA Flat Track finale near my house in Pomona, California, and the racing was really great. There was a ton of passing, and racers would slide under one another, then the guy who just got passed could often square the turn up a little bit and get back under the racer who just passed them and get the spot back. Although there aren’t any jumps at most AMA Flat Track events, and typically they only turn left, the racing was outstanding.
And it started me to thinking: The simpler a race is, the better the racing is. This has been something that the AMA has gone back and forth about for at least a decade, but it seems to be true. There are a lot of reasons why NASCAR is popular in the USA, but the biggest one is because the racing is simple (go fast, turn left), which means there always seems to be some sort of action on the track.
Now, compare all of the passing in a NASCAR race (if you’re familiar) to the nearly complete lack of passing in Formula 1. Formula 1 is much more complex, and the racing is much less action-packed. Sometimes, it seems as if all of the cars in an F1 race could be out there by themselves just putting in lap times and nothing much would change.
In AMA Flat Track, racers are free to push it as far as they can to find the balance between diving deep into corners and still getting a run off of the turns to carry speed down the straights again. Although there are crashes, it’s nothing like Supercross or motocross, because if you go into the turn too hard, usually the worst consequence is that you end up trying so hard to keep the bike off of the wall that you lose your drive for the next straightaway. That’s all.
[img]https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/forums/2013/12/04/38003/s1200_120413coxstory.jpg[/img]
Back when Ricky Carmichael was racing Supercross, he would always prefer smaller whoops on a track, and a lot of times, the AMA would give them to him. Some people figured this was sort of like “fixing” the race because RC was tiny and was never that great in big stadium whoops. And while it definitely did work in his favor, the reality was that the racing was simply better when the whoops were smaller. But Chad Reed and James Stewart, who were both great in whoops and figured that the bigger they were, the better, always hated it when there were small whoops, because they knew they’d have to deal with RC.
They even go back-and-forth on this in the AMA National MX Series. Some guys prefer the track to be smoother. Some guys prefer the track to be rougher. And there was a period of time when the tracks were groomed a lot more, but nowadays they pretty much just groom the area immediately after the start (for safety), and get rid of any tricky kickers on jump lips (also for safety). That’s it. This definitely helps racers who are in shape and creative with their lines like Ryan Villopoto, and in the end, it might make the series more boring.
While many of the people in charge understand that a smoother track might lead to somewhat better racing, the reason they give for leaving it rough is usually that it keeps the speeds down, because if the track were too smooth, the speeds would be much higher, and the crashes would be much harder. This may be true, but when the tracks are rough, the crashes are more frequent...
The latest evidence of this concept was at the recent Monster Energy Cup in Las Vegas. There literally wasn’t a whoop section on the track, and a huge portion of the track was flat and fast. The result was some great racing, first between James Stewart and Ryan Villopoto in the second race, and again between Stewart, Ken Roczen, and some other guys in the final race. The crowd loved it!
So, why do we even have whoops in Supercross? It’s literally the number one thing that scares racers from racing Supercross – especially racers from Europe. I’d venture to guess it’s also the obstacle that results in the most racer injuries throughout the year.
While this won’t be popular with some racers who count on the whoops in order to make up time on everyone else, I think we should either make them much smaller than they usually are, or do away with them completely.
I want good racing, and I’m sure the fans do, too.
And it started me to thinking: The simpler a race is, the better the racing is. This has been something that the AMA has gone back and forth about for at least a decade, but it seems to be true. There are a lot of reasons why NASCAR is popular in the USA, but the biggest one is because the racing is simple (go fast, turn left), which means there always seems to be some sort of action on the track.
Now, compare all of the passing in a NASCAR race (if you’re familiar) to the nearly complete lack of passing in Formula 1. Formula 1 is much more complex, and the racing is much less action-packed. Sometimes, it seems as if all of the cars in an F1 race could be out there by themselves just putting in lap times and nothing much would change.
In AMA Flat Track, racers are free to push it as far as they can to find the balance between diving deep into corners and still getting a run off of the turns to carry speed down the straights again. Although there are crashes, it’s nothing like Supercross or motocross, because if you go into the turn too hard, usually the worst consequence is that you end up trying so hard to keep the bike off of the wall that you lose your drive for the next straightaway. That’s all.
[img]https://p.vitalmx.com/photos/forums/2013/12/04/38003/s1200_120413coxstory.jpg[/img]
Back when Ricky Carmichael was racing Supercross, he would always prefer smaller whoops on a track, and a lot of times, the AMA would give them to him. Some people figured this was sort of like “fixing” the race because RC was tiny and was never that great in big stadium whoops. And while it definitely did work in his favor, the reality was that the racing was simply better when the whoops were smaller. But Chad Reed and James Stewart, who were both great in whoops and figured that the bigger they were, the better, always hated it when there were small whoops, because they knew they’d have to deal with RC.
They even go back-and-forth on this in the AMA National MX Series. Some guys prefer the track to be smoother. Some guys prefer the track to be rougher. And there was a period of time when the tracks were groomed a lot more, but nowadays they pretty much just groom the area immediately after the start (for safety), and get rid of any tricky kickers on jump lips (also for safety). That’s it. This definitely helps racers who are in shape and creative with their lines like Ryan Villopoto, and in the end, it might make the series more boring.
While many of the people in charge understand that a smoother track might lead to somewhat better racing, the reason they give for leaving it rough is usually that it keeps the speeds down, because if the track were too smooth, the speeds would be much higher, and the crashes would be much harder. This may be true, but when the tracks are rough, the crashes are more frequent...
The latest evidence of this concept was at the recent Monster Energy Cup in Las Vegas. There literally wasn’t a whoop section on the track, and a huge portion of the track was flat and fast. The result was some great racing, first between James Stewart and Ryan Villopoto in the second race, and again between Stewart, Ken Roczen, and some other guys in the final race. The crowd loved it!
So, why do we even have whoops in Supercross? It’s literally the number one thing that scares racers from racing Supercross – especially racers from Europe. I’d venture to guess it’s also the obstacle that results in the most racer injuries throughout the year.
While this won’t be popular with some racers who count on the whoops in order to make up time on everyone else, I think we should either make them much smaller than they usually are, or do away with them completely.
I want good racing, and I’m sure the fans do, too.
12/4/2013 10:41am
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