It is always a little crazy at the first race of the year, guys haven't seen anyone other than the guys they are training with, and really aren't sure how good their set up is working. Now they have the split timing of sections to try out different lines and see what is fastest and then string together all the fastest ways through each section over the whole track into one lap and get the fastest time, but somehow they missed that triple after the finish line that Bowers took on camera which was clearly faster line....... but no one was doing that. Tomac will have his bike figured out by the half way mark (just like last year) and then go on a late season tear...... but giving up this week may hurt him again if Musquin can be consistent like Dungey always was and keep the bleeding to a minimum when Tomac gets it figured out. Roczen was good after having a ground beef arm for the last year. He has the talent to run up front, but I'm not sure his arm can hold out in the event of a crash..... he has to be smoother than ever and not ever hit the deck, which may slow him down just enough to not be winning everything. Anderson always starts the season off well and you think he is going to be one of the top guys for the new year, but then he has a terrible race in one of the first three races after A1, and you wonder if its the same guy. Barcia was the big surprise for me...... he hasn't been that fast for quite some time, and it was good to see him be happy to do so well. When the gravy train finally ends, it seems that he might have figured out that he has been wasting his talent and needs to put in the work. I expected more from Baggett than he showed, thought he might be a top 5 guy, must still be outdoors specialist. Weston Peick is good, plain and simple.
So far, so good in SX, we might have a good season on our hands if we can get them to keep mixing up the results.