Nationals - Track Prep

John250

John250

PR Founding Father
I watched the highlights from rounds 1 and 2 of the nationals online. Those tracks both weeks were ridiculous rough. Rutted, breaking bumps.....rough rough. I then saw some highlights from not so many years ago. The track was rough, but nothing like we are seeing with the tracks today.

I can remember going to Kenworthys and in between motos they would be out there with a disc, dozers and water prepping for moto 2. So is the lack of prep hurting the racing or helping? Causing more injuries or not?

In my opinion the racing was much better when the tracks were not quite as rutted and rough. Just my opinion. And the chance of injury also obviously goes up with the track conditions. Hell last week, there was one jump they were doubling, and litterly landing in mega breaking bumps, and I thought wow, no way. Obviously when the track conditions are like that, it also favors the factory guys with the $50k suspension and a suspension tech sitting under his tent.

Just my thoughts. Anyone else agree or disagree?
 
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Motocross Action magazine addressed this very issue a couple of years back.
They drew the same comparison to older days of running tracks and came to the same conclusion you are pointing out.
 
I agree with you. The whole chest thump "Motocross is rough" mainly comes from people who don't ride. I'll elaborate later.
 
Is it challenging? Absolutely? Fun? Not really. Those guys go so incredibly fast through that stuff it's crazy. They catch a wheel and a flying they go. When they go, it's a real possibility it's a season ender. When they over shoot something like John mentioned and your in knee deep ruts or supercross whoop sized braking bumps. Who likes that? People who don't or hardly ride.

Call me a pussy, or whatever you want. This chest thumping movement has probably also driven the pro practicer train. Not often do any open practices hit the race shape mentality.

20 years ago, it got rough. Plenty rough. Red bud was the roughest around. Now, it's like a challenge to see how rough it can get. I love a rutty corner or a whooped out sand section or even whole sand track. However, when there's 50 yard long ruts all across the track, it's not very fun. I don't care how big you think your package is, crazy ruts and rough just isn't fun. People say "back in my day".... Bullshit. 3" ruts aren't what we're talking about. Ruts that are peg deep and more than just in a corner.

This is across the entire board. Local, am nats, pros. Eli's year ender happened why? Js7's was coming down that hill? There's many more. Sure crashes will always happen. It's what we do. But why in the hell is everyone trying to make it even more sketchy.

Argue that "if you don't practice in it you won't do good" or "you'll never be a pro if u don't ride in it".. guess what, 98% of us at a track any given day will never make it there even if everything falls into place anyway. Now throw in knarly injuries from stupid rough tracks. Good luck. Little Ricky McStewart (Thanks Travis lol) will likely be working a 9-5 by 20.

End of rant. Flame on.
 
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Y-town tonight- perfectly roughly
 
Those rollers are tricky at ytown. Only place I don't like ruts is jump faces. I think I ride better with ruts I freak out more on hard slick, I'm holding it wide going faster and THATS when I get arm pump and ride over my head and crash at high speed. Rutty roughness I tend to respect the track more, focus and ride more technical. (LOL) Guys that hang it out WFO and don't respect the ruts and rough get bit. No local track gets THAT bad.

For the nationals guys I dig the rough - you get different styles that work. Tomac is a bulldog and doesn't give an eff how big that bump is he's going to own it (yeah it bites him but hey stop twisting the right so hard) Roczen and Musquin are just going to keep elbows up jump the bumps, wheel tap and stand up through the deep ruts.

Locally - Respect the track - slow the eff down - ride more ruts, they get easier. I think that is why people freak out at beans, they start ripping like its malvern and bam they get bit.


Not chest thumping - I'm the last guy in any position to do that.
 
Jack, you would not have liked COCR yesterday then. Wish I had went out and took some photos of the ruts al the way across the faces of the jumps. I was seriously just kind of holding my breath every time my son was launching them. Me on the other had was not...They also had ruts and breaking bumps down the straights. Just not fun for an old guy like me at all.

Chris I disagree on the rough pro tracks. I believe you can have better racing if the tracks were more like they were when you were racing. And those ruts and crap are what come up and bite them in the ass and put them on the ground.
 
Nobody said no ruts or braking bumps. You had ruts and braking bumps right? Yes, but today it's 10 times worse. You had peg deep ruts your inside handlebar would drag. Then 20' out it stopped and was normal chop.. Today it seems like that same rut will lead all the way off the next take off.. There was a bad ass super deep rut at malvern before the booter by the road. I loved that corner.

Jack, if respecting the tracks means deal with shitty track prep, stick a fork in me. Maybe I'm just "old" now, but I'm not riding if I'm not having fun. I'll go somewhere twice as far just to ensure I have fun.

For the record, there's no local to me tracks that I can pinpoint for lack of maintenance, but I see it all the time with today's world of the internet and the nats on TV.. Some days, prep doesn't matter. Those days, it'll just be a tough day at the track. Some of the best prep in the state is at Malvern but Malvern was incredibly rough at the battle, but with the new track, it was 100% to be expected and out of the control of the operators.
 
Meister said:
Nobody said no ruts or braking bumps. You had ruts and braking bumps right? Yes, but today it's 10 times worse. You had peg deep ruts your inside handlebar would drag. Then 20' out it stopped and was normal chop.. Today it seems like that same rut will lead all the way off the next take off.. There was a bad ass super deep rut at malvern before the booter by the road. I loved that corner.

Jack, if respecting the tracks means deal with shitty track prep, stick a fork in me. Maybe I'm just "old" now, but I'm not riding if I'm not having fun. I'll go somewhere twice as far just to ensure I have fun.

For the record, there's no local to me tracks that I can pinpoint for lack of maintenance, but I see it all the time with today's world of the internet and the nats on TV.. Some days, prep doesn't matter. Those days, it'll just be a tough day at the track. Some of the best prep in the state is at Malvern but Malvern was incredibly rough at the battle, but with the new track, it was 100% to be expected and out of the control of the operators.
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I take my money to the Top 5 in the state (Beans, BC, Ytown, OIR and Vern), places I know if I spend my money I'm not going to be dealing with shitty prep. You don't have to respect shitty prep, I agree with you there. Malvern Battle was good rough, only place that had sketchy ruts was the finish section - I was going as far left as I could go in that section. BC's AQ was rough as hell too. Never felt unsafe at either.


We are agreeing I think? - Just keep the faces touched up all day, full prep at intermission, and water as needed. Ytown and OIR have a really good handle on clay prep - he needs to do a class. Oh yeah and going to michigan is awesome too I have no problem making that drive.
 
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We're on the same page for sure.

JO did everything he could at that qualifier. Mother nature is the enemy in that case.
 
Mother nature is like the house in Vegas....you might win small amounts here and there, and occasionally someone gets lucky and hits big, but the odds are in favor of the house......
 
Thunder valley has odd dirt. Go back and watch the 87 national there. They did like zero prep. Throw some bales down to mark the corners and race. Even with no till or water it still got rutted and choppy. Nothing like now, but that ground gets so hard its crazy.
I do believe we have too much prep now. I know I'm in the tiny minority on that, but throttle control on hard pack was one of my best attributes. Now having that talent is the same as being able to hit "Play" and "record" at the same time.
I look at ruts on a mx track the same as big whoops on SX, its just about the only thing that separates the riders and makes for good passing
 
BriarcliffMx said:
Looks like Unadilla.....they are minimalists, but that's based on one experience. Has anyone seen it get deep there? And I don't mean like my C track after a 300 rider practice.
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That unadilla pic is from MXRewind -- they don't disc it deep for the old bikes. They basically just lightly scratch it up.
 
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