Outdoors is US hot ticket
By John Dickinson on 27th Sep 07
JD tells us why he's so enthusiatic about the AMA Outdoor National Motocross series. Could it be that it reminds him of what racing should be exciting and interesting...
I HAVE a confession to make: it is that I am arecent convert (i.e. this season) to watching the AMA National outdoormotocross series on TV – and like all converts to a given cause, I amway over-enthusiastic about it. In my own defence, at least I realisethat I have become an evangelist and do attempt to temper the urge tobang on and on about "the AMA Outdoors” to anyone who will listen.
Previous to this Outdoors conversion I was oncethe world's greatest enthusiast regarding the AMA Super-cross series.This was after having been knocked-out by those early videos of RickyJohnson and David Bailey wowing huge crowds at Anaheim back in theearly 1980s. And if you haven't seen those early SX vids, I stronglyrecommend you beg, borrow or steal them and check-em out.
The following McGrath era was good but over thepast few seasons I must confess to having lost much of my earlierenthusiasm for American SX. Something to do with the tracks all lookingand riding the same plus the Ricky Carmichael domination. I also beganto suspect that not all the riders contracted to contest the serieswere actually giving it 100%, never mind the mythical 110% that theyfrequently claim. Now I could be wrong but my theory on this is thatmany are paid such huge amounts of dosh that they don't NEED to race.It is so much easier to just stay out of trouble and just ride round tofulfil your contractual obligations. Whether I'm right or not doesn't really matter, the fact of the matter is that outside of Carmichael and Stewart, not many others were really giving it a go.
Cue the Outdoors. Now, to the outsider it is notactually over-difficult to confuse the two disciplines. The Outdoorcircuits are just overgrown versions of the Stadium tracks, designeddown to the last inch with step-ups, step-downs, doubles, triples,rhythm sections etc, etc.
The critical difference is that most of the AMAOutdoor tracks are BIG. They are HUGE. And they are FAST. The set-piecejumps are connected by wide-open spaces of real estate with fantasticwide, sweeping corners, banked turns, frequently offering a choice oftwo, three or more lines that positively encourage hard racing.
I can't help but compare these superb permanentfacilities to many of the built-in-a-day offerings on the ‘European'World Champion-ship circuit. Having watched the slot-car racing thatwas served-up in Northern Ireland, comparing it to virtually any USChampionship circuit really is chalk from cheese.
By the wonders of multi channel television Irecently happened to catch, virtually back-to-back, the 2007 Irish MXGPand whichever AMA Outdoor was being broadcast (it really doesn't matterwhich one it was) and it was this vast gulf in the sheer quality of thetwo tracks that actually inspired the writing of this piece. One was aslot-car track formed by pushing tons of loose earth over a green fieldthat when wet, predictably cut-up into axle-deep ruts. The resultingracing was negligible, to my mind a travesty of motocross.
The US track was a fabulous creation, moulded, cut and tweaked from a naturally undulating starting point where every corner, jump and straight offered a myriad ofalternate lines. Curves could be swept-round, squared-off and manyoffered any amount of options in-between.
This allowed genuine racing to take place, which,let us remind ourselves, is what it is all supposed to be about. Iteven makes watching the front-runners catching and passing the lappersinteresting.
Which brings us to the riders. James Bubba Stewartappeared to be the natural successor to the Carmichael crown. Fast andaggressive, often over-aggressive, Stewart is worth the dollar. But formy money, new kid Ryan Villopoto is the best thing to happen tomotocross since Travis Pastrana.
Even when viewed on the end of a 6,000 mile longcable, this kid has frequently had me on the edge of my chair allsummer. His battles with Ben Townley have been truly epic and these twoout and out racers have earned every cent of whatever they get paid.And good on 'em.
Back in the early 1980s, as I watched in awe atthe head-to-head battles being fought-out between Johnson and Bailey –whom sadly I never got to see live – in my own living room, I didwonder if anything would ever grab my imagination in the same way again.
Villopoto has done just that...Hawkstone International, anyone?