St. Louis Supercross Observations

B

biglou

1. The new practice/qualifying sessions suck. Less racing for your money. Less than half, actually. I paid no attention to any of this until Saturday, so I had no idea how it worked. They have x number of practices, with the transponders on the bikes. The fastest so many lap times get to make the night program. Night program = two heats and one LCQ per class. There's no gate drop for practice, they just turn them loose and they get 15 minutes or so to put up the best lap time they can. Yawn.

2. Prestone crashed during the opening ceremonies. Classic. They did the music, said his name, slid the doors behind the podium open, and you saw him tip over off the ramp. Doors slam shut, silence, on to the next rider...

3. The opening presentation has been stepped up a notch with pretty cleverly produced video segments. Pretty cool. When they started, I leaned over to Evenslower and said, "That's Ennio Morricone's 'The Ecstasy of Gold' they're playing." His response: "Your proabably one of only two people in this entire stadium who knows that. (Him being the other one). Think, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", near the end when Tuco is running in circles in the cemetery looking for Arch Stanton's grave (where the gold is supposedly buried).

4. Watch the 125's when it airs!!! Non-stop carnage in the heats and in the main.

5. Both classes, peeps are ignoring the blue flags and it's impacting the racing. Not sure how much of that will show up on the broadcasts.

6. Tommy Hahn = Crashing machine. Once every five laps he crashes. No exceptions. I was watching Atlanta yesterday, that I recorded while I was gone Saturday, and he had an exact copy crash in STL. Stuck in a triple or rhythm section, with the front wheel on a tuff block, pulling on the bars trying to get it off. I thought I was watching STL footage yesterday. Saturday, he crashes on the triple, told Erin Bates he broke his arm, next thing you know, he's racing (and crashing with alarming regularity) again. Must have been a stinger in his elbow, they said.

7. #914, Eric Nye cannot go around a corner without crashing. This also happened with amazing regularity.

#8. The latest thing in rims, two-tone annodizing, where it looks like they dipped the rim half into some dye, so it's half silver and half blue, looks like dog poo, IMO. Words like, "asymmetrical" and "unnerving" and "annoying to look at" and "looks like you forgot to wash your bike" come to mind...
 
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karterron

~SPONSOR~
Mar 24, 2002
684
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The pits were a madhouse. They need to do away with the giving out free pit passes to anyone that wants them. I would rather pay and deal with less people. We left after a few minutes, you couldn't get anywhere due to the crowd, big waste of time.
 

Chili

Lifetime Sponsor - Photog Moderator
Apr 9, 2002
8,062
15
biglou said:
#8. The latest thing in rims, two-tone annodizing, where it looks like they dipped the rim half into some dye, so it's half silver and half blue, looks like dog poo, IMO. Words like, "asymmetrical" and "unnerving" and "annoying to look at" and "looks like you forgot to wash your bike" come to mind...

Say it isn't so, Lou turning up his nose at something that could be considered bling???
 

Combat767

It's all about the dirt..
Nov 20, 2001
200
0
Great observations Lou! Hope to see the racing from the DVR in the next couple nights. I noticed those rims as well. Don't care for them either, but they do catch your eye.

Sounds like they need to add something to the nights events to add a little something to the program.
 

YamaB

Member
Apr 2, 2004
401
0
My observations...

I agree. I was really disappointment that they didn't have any qualifying races... Those are always a lot of fun to watch as local riders give it their all to try and make the big show... Since I didn't buy a program, and didn't know the schedule, I kept waiting for the pre-lim races to start and they never did... Just lots of laps of practice...

Another observation that I had is that just about every St. Louis person that I had to interact with this weekend was rude and seemed to have a bad attitude. Kansas City seems like a much friendlier city that our neighbor to the east...

The Edward Jones Dome sucks for smokers... You have to leave the facility to smoke, and then jump through a LOT of hoops to get back in...

Despite my gripes, I did have a GREAT time this weekend! The lites action was INSANE...
 

Micahdawg

Member
Feb 2, 2001
503
0
I feel better about spending all my time in the pits now. I felt like I was missing out on the practice, but if it wasn't that great then oh well. Went straight to the Reed tent and noticed he was giving out tickets for autographs this time (like bubba and RC). No dice there. Did wander by the KTM tent when Jeff Alessi was out and ended up with an autograph. Was funny, I guess Jeff wadded it up pretty bad in practice and when he reached for a poster to sign, he was all out. So he said to his mechanic, "Gimme something to sign" and the guy tosses a busted piece of bar mount to him :)

In the end I got a poster with both him and Mike, and they both signed it. Pretty cool. Also got a pic with DV12 on his way back from practice...he was in good spirits all night.

Had a great time as usual. Too bad they didn't show any coverage of the LCQ with Tyler Evans hanging it on the ragged edge just to miss the main by one spot. He was just out of control the entire time!!!
 

YamaB

Member
Apr 2, 2004
401
0
Micahdawg said:
Had a great time as usual. Too bad they didn't show any coverage of the LCQ with Tyler Evans hanging it on the ragged edge just to miss the main by one spot. He was just out of control the entire time!!!

Yeah, that was fun to watch... Him and that Yamaha (forget who) were REALLY going at it (very aggressive passes/moves), and TE just about lost it umpteen times...
 

evenslower

~SPONSOR~
N. Texas SP
Nov 7, 2001
1,234
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I second what Lou has put forth and would add:

-The production value of the opening ceremonies has increased dramatically. Pretty cool stuff but dangerously close to going WWE like if they keep heading in that direction.

-T-shirt launching technology (like everything else) has really progressed over the last 10 years or so since I've been going to SX.

-Terry Boyd is good at what he does.

-The deep voice guy who does the promos is making a fortune off of SX this year (or he'd better be b/c they sure used him a lot).

-If you take a road trip with Lou, be sure that the window closest to where he sits is functional. I won't get into why, just trust me.

All in all SX is still a good show, its not moto-x but its where the bucks are. I'm bummed about losing about 40-50% of the days racing for sure. That being said.....see you in Dallas.
 
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Chili

Lifetime Sponsor - Photog Moderator
Apr 9, 2002
8,062
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evenslower said:
If you take a road trip with Lou, be sure that the window closest to where he sits is functional. I won't get into why, just trust me.

It's a small price to pay for his vast knowledge of cartoons :whoa:
 

2-Strokes 4-ever

~SPONSOR~
Feb 9, 2005
1,842
4
Missouri
YamaB said:
Another observation that I had is that just about every St. Louis person that I had to interact with this weekend was rude and seemed to have a bad attitude. Kansas City seems like a much friendlier city that our neighbor to the east...

Wow
 

nikki

Moto Junkie
Apr 21, 2000
5,802
1
biglou said:
#8. The latest thing in rims, two-tone annodizing, where it looks like they dipped the rim half into some dye, so it's half silver and half blue, looks like dog poo, IMO. Words like, "asymmetrical" and "unnerving" and "annoying to look at" and "looks like you forgot to wash your bike" come to mind...

Red's gonna be hurt!
 

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TwinSpar

AssClown WannaBe
N. Texas SP
Aug 18, 1999
6,886
115
I dunno... I was picturing the half dipped rim that lou described and was thinking what lou was but after seeing the tapered anodizing on Red's rim...... I LIKE that look.
 
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