Andrea's Angle: San Francisco
January 17, 2024
Welcome back to Andrea's Angle, a column showcasing my perspective as a newbie to Supercross. Here are my thoughts from San Francisco!
Pre-Race & Opening Ceremony
This is the first mudder I’ve ever seen live! I'm a little worried it’s going to be more boring to watch - they sometimes can be, since riders can’t make passes as easily on a broken down and slippery track. That said, it also may give different riders the chance to succeed, if they can manage a good start and stay upright.
Opening Ceremonies were reaaaally abbreviated to keep the riders from getting muddy and wrecking the track any further. The alternative was each rider just awkwardly walking across the stage for approximately five seconds, doing a little wave, and then walking off. They should've done a little dance or something to get the crowd pumped up!
Mudders Overall
Here are some of my general takeaways when it comes to mud races, based on what I witnessed.
- A good start matters the most during a mudder since it’s pretty hard to pass (super slick, slower speeds, etc) - so the guy that gets out in the lead (holeshots) should be good to go unless he crashes on his own.
- The whole race looks like it's in slow-motion - muted and tamed down. Due to the lack of traction, it becomes practically impossible to do any jumps, which is the main way of increasing speed on the track. You can see riders about to slide out even just rolling over jumps, and sometimes slipping off the track. I'll admit that it's a little funny to watch at times, but I don’t want to see someone get hurt!
- The riders get absolutely caked in mud, and it's even harder than usual to tell who’s who. The green leader light really comes in handy here, until it too is covered in mud.
- I hear the crowd exclaiming basically every minute at someone else crashing or sliding out. I was unable to keep up!
- As the race goes on, the ruts (deep grooves in the dirt) get very deep, and the mud is sticky. This causes riders to get stuck in those ruts, which is what we were seeing a lot of. It almost looked like they were being eaten alive by the track.
Takeaways
Overall, the theme of the night seemed to be survival. Get through this race without completely ruining your bike and/or injuring yourself. In the post-race press conference, the riders seemed grateful to just have made the podium, and considered that a win for the night. They all seemed to share the opinion that this was one of the most difficult mudders they had ever raced!
San Francisco didn't give us much information about the rest of the season (e.g. no one's really counting out Jett just because he was lapped in the main). It did, however, unfortunately put some riders out of the championship hunt, namely Jo Shimoda, Nate Thrasher, Malcolm Stewart, and Justin Cooper.
Looking forward to San Diego to see how things will truly shake out! Fingers crossed that we avoid any rain on Saturday.
See you next week,
Andrea
