Vital MX Monday Pit Bits

We're not sure what was crazier, the fact that a pair of skydivers from the Red Bull Air Force were scheduled to drop into Chase Field during opening ceremonies, or that they actually opened up the roof of the stadium to allow it. Normally Phoenix is just about perfect t-shirt and shorts weather…which makes for good ogling…er, make that spectating in the pits. But with daytime temperatures in the mid-50s, and dropping rapidly as soon as the sun went down, it wasn't so fun when they opened the roof, which let out all the warm air inside. It definitely added a serious chill to start the night.

Oh, and as far as the skydivers went, one of them actually made it in, just clearing the edge of the retractable roof, though he later said he had milk it for all it was worth, and almost had to run across the last portion of the roof. The other guy? Initial rumors had him sitting on the roof with no way to get down, but in reality he'd had problems with his canopy (a portion was folded underneath, which messed up his brake on one side, and took away his ability to steer, as well as sending him into a fast spin). He'd already started a countdown to cut away his primary chute and go for the reserve when he finally got it cleared. But by then it was too late to maneuver into the stadium, and he landed safely outside. We can't even imagine how cold it had to have been as they jumped into a freefall from the plane.

Check where James is at in this photo, and then realize that by the next corner he was at RC's rear wheel. Sheesh.

Before we dive in too deeply here, we've got a photo for you to look over. After the red flag and restart caused by David Vuillemin's crash in the Big Boy main event, James Stewart got off to a bad start, and elicited some laughs in the press conference when he said, "I give two starts a night, the heat race and the main event. When the third one came in, I didn't have nothing. I was so late that I saw pipes on the side of me. That's how late I was. I kind of knew it, and just tried to squeeze my way through the first corner. I knew if I didn't go down I had a good chance of winning."

But check out the photo above, which was shot between the second and third corner on the track. On that straightaway, James went by Chad Reed, Tim Ferry, Jeff Dement and Kevin Windham…and dropped in right on Ricky's rear wheel by the time they reached the next corner. That, Vital MX fans, is one very ridiculous display of speed. With RC out of the next race and only on a part-time schedule? There is very little standing in the way of James Stewart and his first AMA title except gravity, mistakes, or a mechanical.

Chad Reed talks over setup with his mechanic, Paul Delaurier. We think translated, that means "Good mechanic," but we need to check with Christophe Pourcel.

Bike setup seemed to be the topic of choice after the Supercross main. Though he'd only ridden one timed qualifying session at Anaheim 1, third-place finisher Chad Reed rode both sessions in Phoenix. "I felt I had to. I was struggling a little bit with bike setup and I wanted to chase that. Just make that better and be more comfortable when it came to the night program."

So how did Chad feel physically, and where was he at with his injuries, compared to the previous week? "I think this weekend as far as being in pain and being able to ride, I think I was the same. I wouldn't say it was better or anything like that, but it wasn't worse. That's all I'm looking for at this point."

"A normal broken bone takes four to six weeks. But I'm not getting a whole lot of pain from my broken bone. It's everything else. It's my chest, and I can't hold on and take big hits. Everything kind of compounds each other. You take the hit, and when you take the hit you've got to breathe. I feel like I'm going to blow up a little bit. At this point, we're just working out butts off trying to get healthy and fight for wins."

Ricky Carmichael had set the fastest time in practice, and holeshot the restart in the main event, though he come in a close second behind James Stewart. ""I felt it was going to be my night tonight. That just goes to show you guys that lap times don't matter, cause I've been on the other side many times where James is so much faster than me and in the main I was able to pull it off. As far as speed wise goes, I don't think he found much speed, I think he found some fantastic lines."

RC will be at A2, but not in a racing capacity. Instead, he'll be in the TV booth with Ralph Shaheen and Jeff Emig.

Bike setup was also on RC's mind. "Suzuki's been working hard. Our engine is simply amazing this year. Ian and Roger and everybody at the shop has been working exceptionally hard and we've got a great package, we just need to be a touch better. I'm actually looking forward to having a little bit more time and being able to perfect that thing."

"One thing I'm happy about is that I've always been able to step up to the speed that is there. I was able to step up for Jeremy and then Chad, and now James. I'm always feeling like I'm elevating my game, which is a very great personal goal that I'm very proud of. But myself and James are so close in speed that it does come down a lot to where my bike works great in areas, and his bike works great in areas. It's just depending on the track a lot of times.  Obviously there is a little bit of skill involved in twisting that throttle, which he may have me by a little bit. But it's so close. I think we're riding the bikes as fast as they can go, as fast as the tires will allow us to grip to the ground and it does come back to bike setup a lot. It's getting a lot like car racing, it seems like. Between him and I, where when I was racing Jeremy, I think I elevated my game to where I was able to beat him was I just hung it out. It just came down to raw speed, and it didn't really matter how your bike was set up. Where now, when you're looking for that split-second, you have to have the thing working good in Supercross, where in outdoors you can overcome it a little bit. This stuff is very touchy in Supercross."

"The technology has grown so much since I was 21, really, you have no choice but to learn fast. I'm not around James much and I don't really ask how he sets his bike up or anything. I'm just really concentrated on how I set mine up, so I don't know how knowledgeable he is. I don't know how much he depends on his crew around him. But for me, I know how to set my bike up to where I need to win. I can tell them pretty much the valving to put in it, from forks to shock, to head angle and clamps and this and that. I've been around for a long time, so that takes the guesswork out of it.  I'm sure he's a little more knowledgeable about it than when I was at 21 because you have to be."

James Stewart, charging during the Supercross main event.

Though he won the main event, James Stewart wasn't immune to setup issues. "I struggled with bike setup all day. Going from the track the way it was last weekend, I kind of figured that was the way it was going to be this weekend. Then we get here and it's a little bit open. Pretty much all day nothing changed between the heat race and the main event, just me. I went back and talked it over with the people I was around. I felt like I was better than what I was riding. We looked at the video, and looked a the track map and found some better lines. I think one of the key lines was before the whoops, and it worked out to my advantage tonight."

I just felt like the lines I was running in practice and the heat race just weren't working. It's as simple as that. I could see on the times that I was off, and I knew that I had to pick it up somewhere, otherwise he was going to run away from me.

I don't care about race wins. I care about the championship. If I had to take a second tonight, I'd be sitting up here not bummed at all. Like I said, I found a little bit extra…not speed, but lines, and made it work to my advantage.

""I've improved a lot, the knowledge that I have, and the way suspension is. I felt like last weekend we had the best setup. I think anybody that raced me could tell you that. I just got in and out of my corners. I think the only difference this weekend from last weekend was the track. Tonight we didn't have the right setup. I definitely struggled with that during practice, and pretty much all the way up to the main event. It's hard to set it up one way and come to the race and it's a different way.  As a team we've got to improve a little bit, and have some options. I think the tracks are doing really good. Just like Ricky said, I think we can improve on some of the transitions, but it seems like the last two weeks the whoops have been the same, which is a good thing. You're going to get a decent-sized set of whoops. I think the racing's getting better every weekend, but it seems like guys are dropping left and right, like Chad at the practice track, and Grant this week. At home I have my practice track really mellow because I do a lot of laps during the day. Toward the end of that you get really tired and don't want to struggle through a section every lap."

Ivan Tedesco. Catching up with James after the race to offer an apology was a class move.

One hot topic of discussion after the race was the contact between Ivan Tedesco and James Stewart. Given that these two had tangled in Toronto, and Ivan Tedesco had protest James (which was upheld), some, including James, assumed that there might be some retaliation involved. Afterward, James said, "If he was going to do something, it was the last lap, and he had his teammate behind him. I'm sure he wanted to help out. Even after the race I said, 'Hey, dude, I'm sorry about the incident.' He came up there and apologized to me after the race. Just personally, I felt like there was a little bit more than him just accidentally running into me.  But it's okay, I'll move on and focus on what I've got to do."

After everyone got a good look at it on CBS Sunday, any furor seemed to quickly die. It appeared that Ivan seemed more surprised that James made a quick cut into the corner, after IT had just taken a quick look back over his shoulder to see where his teammate was. Besides, we'd guess that if it had been intentional, he'd have hit him a whole lot harder than that, and also wouldn't have quickly apologized afterward. We were stoked to see them both clear the air.

Before practice, DV left this note on his bike for his mechanic, Brent Myron.

Speaking of David Vuillemin as we did earlier, the good news was that while he'd spent the night in a Phoenix hospital, he was doing well and flew home the next day…though he'd taken a serious shot to the stomach. We'll hope that he makes a fast recovery, and is well enough to race this weekend in Anaheim. He's been riding really well, and had been third-quickest in Saturday's timed qualifying.

Nick Wey and Ryan Villopoto share more than a trainer, they share tips on the track. Here, RV gives Nick a pre-main update.

DV's teammate, Nick Wey, probably was the next biggest victim of the restart, behind DV, that is. Nick had grabbed the holeshot the first time around (good for a $1,500 check from Progressive Insurance). Not only did he lose that due to the restart, he was nearly last as the main even started for the second time. Fortunately, he charged back to finish ninth by the end of the 20 laps.

Though it wasn't our goal when we visited the MDK Motorsports shop, last week we started a bit of discussion about on MotoTalk who is or isn't a privateer when we showed off their shop and new big rig. If you want to take a peek for yourself, you can click the following link to get to cC1WaXNpdC1TdGV2ZS1MYW1zb24tYW5kLVh5aWVuY2UtTURLLUhvbmRhLDc3
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">the article with links to a tour of the MDK Motorsports facility, or with their Team Manager, Steve Lamson.

The one thing we will say is that for the events that they have to get to all across the country, traveling or living in a van sure isn't the hot ticket.

Yep, it's a privateer rig.

Here's another example of a slick privateer rig, which Heath Voss is using this season. The former Supercross World Champion has had a pair of solid rides so far in '07, with an eighth in Anaheim, and a tenth in Phoenix.

Scott Speed.

If it was Speed that everyone was looking for in Phoenix, he was easy to find. Scott Speed, currently the only U.S. driver competing in Formula 1, is a resident of Scottsdale, AZ, and he was on hand to check out the race. He drives for Team Red Bull (formerly the Minardi squad).

Andrew Short's 450 race bike. Andrew should get the clearance from his doc to start playriding soon, following his ACL graft.

Andrew Short and Davi Millsaps were also both on hand in the Valley of the Sun, and were checking out the action. Though rumors of both of these guys riding East coast Lites rounds seemingly refuse to die, they both say it'll be 450s for them when they return. Andrew won't even start riding until the end of this month at the earliest. However, Team Honda's Tommy Hahn was also in attendance, and after his most recent injury, his plans have definitely changed to the East.

The new Miss SX auditions are on.

Good news SX fans. The start straight shimmy is on for '07.

Travis Preston has a unique ability to make his 450 look like one of the new CRF150s.

We have to give some props to Sobe No Fear / Samsung / Honda's Travis Preston, who finished fourth for the second week in a row after charging through much of the top ten. Way to go, Travis.

Michael Byrne.

Also scoring his best ride to date aboard a Rockstar Energy / WBR / Suzuki, was Michael Byrne, who nabbed sixth on what's reputed to be an RM-Z450 with a very stock engine. 

Chris Gosselaar.

Despite a leg injury that slowed him at Anaheim, and having to ride the LCQ in Phoenix (which he won), Chris Gosselaar came back to nab a third-place finish, part of a Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki podium sweep. "After the heat race I was so down on myself. I knew I was better than that. In the main I got a really bad start and tried follow Ryan through and there were dudes going everywhere, jumping off the track. I just tried to ride 15 laps as solid as I could." Look for Li'l Goose to avoid his start issues next week. "I'm bummed with my starts right now and will work on that a lot this week."

Ryan Villopoto.

Ahead of Gosselaar in second place was A1's Lite class winner, Ryan Villopoto, who'd had a crash in his heat race which left him with a poor gate pick. "It would have been good if I didn't go down with two laps to go in my qualifier. I haven't seen it on tape yet, but it kind of felt like it was a pretty hard crash. I got the last qualifying spot, so I was what…18th to the gate. Me and Goose were on the gate and I accidentally moved over on Goose, and then moved way left. The KTM guy (Martin Davalos) was pretty much even with me, going into the turn and I figured he'd go inside and hug the inside, but he went straight for the berm and almost pushed me off the track. My rear tire went off and knocked some tuff blocks down. It was pretty crazy through that first rhythm section. We just had to go slow and wait until everything calmed down, and then go for it."

"It was pretty hairball. A lot of people were just going everywhere and trying not to land on each other. There are a lot of new guys and they're pretty much just going for it and not watching out for each other, so you've just got to wait for it all to pan out.

Christophe Pourcel gets a grilling en français from Stephan LeGrand (AKA Le Big).

Who's most excited about Christophe Pourcel's first win? Maybe not Christophe himself, who seems to be one mellow guy, but the French journalists like Stephan LeGrand. Or maybe it's his manager. The official answer is that Christophe is still headed back to France to prepare for the GPs after Anaheim 2...but it's sounding like he's interested in staying longer.

Here's a reminder to check out the prelim info on our by1Db250ZXN0LDc4Mg==
">Photo Contest, where we've already picked up some solid entries. Even if you're not an aspiring photographer, you'll dig our new Photo section, which has been redesigned, and hosts tons of new features in the photo galleries. Check it out for yourself.

Okay, that's it for this time around, except to remind you to check back throughout the week for more on Vital MX. And in the meantime, we'll cross our fingers that the track at A2 features lap times that are longer than the low 40-second range.