King's Korner

Written by Jeremy McGrath Wednesday, 18 January 2012 18:21

Jeremy McGrath is the "King" of Supercross. He helped popularize this sport, in a way that no other had, or has, ever. Supercross is an off-shoot of motocross, but held inside major stadium venues that normally have NFL football or MLB baseball.

Seven times Jeremy has won the coveted AMA Supercross Championship - the most prestigious in off-road motorcycle racing. The most Championships ever in the history of the sport. 72 Main Event wins - again, the most ever in the history of the sport. He also won the 1995 AMA 250 National MX outdoor title.

This is Jeremy's blog, entitled "King's Korner".

Phoenix was actually a pretty wild night. Ryan Dungey’s win was a big surprise, ... but it also wasn’t.

He rode very consistently, but it seemed like Ryan Villopoto and James Stewart were just a bit faster. At the same time, Stewart and Villopoto tend to ride on the edge a little bit more and got themselves into certain situations that weren’t good. It was a great race for Dungey, though. It was also a great race for Villopoto, but I think that the track, being so hard, fast, and rough, lent itself to rider errors. Overall it was a great race from a fan’s perspective.

Moving onto the upcoming round in Los Angeles this weekend at Dodger Stadium, there are some guys who are pretty frustrated from Phoenix. But then there are other riders, like Jake Weimer and Kevin Windham, who gained a lot of confidence out of last week’s race. I think we are going to see a few more guys in the mix and L.A. will come down to whoever can ride the best race and make the fewest mistakes. So far it seems Ryan Dungey is the guy who can do that. Even Chad Reed had some issues in Arizona, so I think it is going to be interesting. There are a lot of guys who are riding really well right now, and I believe we are shaping up for another great weekend. (One caveat - there is a small possibility of rain this weekend in Los Angeles as I write this Wednesday afternoon.)

Jake Weimer is one guy who has surprised me a bit, and it’s nice to see. Kevin Windham also seems to have bounced back and he is riding really good. He just missed out on that podium spot last weekend.

Our team, Supercross.com / Honda, with Andrew Short is coming along well and Andrew had a much better race for the second round. The second half of the race was much better for him than A1.

As a team owner, we have Andrew Short number 29 as our rider

Josh Grant, on the other hand, has not made the results I know he'd like, and I know he’s a great rider. Right now, he is not really living up to his potential. Then there are guys like Justin Brayton. He rode really well at Anaheim I, then he had that bad result at Phoenix. Justin just needs to remain consistent and limit his mistakes.

The second race as a team owner went a lot better than Round 1. All of us around the team are beginning to figure out personal responsibilities, so everyone is not quite as high strung as they were in Anaheim. It was just a much smoother race weekend. I expect that things are going to keep getting better and better. Everyone from the team owner, to employees, to the rider, needs to figure out their expectations, but we all need to work together as well.

For Andrew, I’m really happy with the progress he’s been making. Obviously he’s not 100 percent healthy with his elbows yet, but we nearly got him into the top five, and that is around where we expect him to be. He just needs to keep plugging away. He got some really good starts in Phoenix. We need to make sure that he keeps getting those starts, so he can get some confidence going, and then I think he will be fine. Overall, Phoenix was a great weekend and was much smoother than the first round. I’m excited to get to round three in Los Angeles.

Ken Roczen recently Tweeted that there is not going to be a whoop section on the Los Angeles track. I believe that a Supercross track should always have whoops. Without whoops, I would really not consider it to be a Supercross track.

I guess we will know for sure when we get to the track on Saturday. I’m looking forward to Round three! Hope you can make it there too!

Jeremy

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