The races were way too short. The guys don’t know what is going to happen when they build the track, but with the semis going away, it’s a short program.

Some guy with a Red Bull parachute dropped into the stadium for the opening ceremonies. Problem was, there were supposed be two guys. The other guy came up short and had to land on the roof!

Kyle Cunningham is a hero! He got the holeshot in his heat and was forced off the track. Over the berm he went; cartwheeling, he landed on the concrete but still got up and finished the race. In the LCQ, he was impressive as he leaped his way through the pack and into the main.

Doug DeHaan is struggling with his starts, but is riding well. He looked good in Phoenix but when you give the guys a head start and the race is six minutes long—that’s all she wrote, folks. After the race, he had a great Rollerball story, which is coming soon to www.racerxcanada.com.

Brady Sheren and I had a conversation before the race. I told him that he will get more and more comfortable as the races go on. Perhaps I was wrong as he looked off his game this week. Bad starts and not a lot of aggression add up to a DNQ for the young Canadian. He can and will do better. On another note, I swung by the Warthog pits and it looked like a motorcycle junkyard with all of the bikes and parts under the tent. Kudos to the team for such a huge undertaking.

Dusty Klatt looked good; he was probably in pain but still pulled through, making the main easily. He ran top five for a while before getting together with Jason Lawrence.  One thing I did notice is that when he was way back, he was very concerned with being lapped and spent too much time looking around. Screw it DK—just race and hold your line. Mad props and respect to The Dustinator for gutting it out.

JT$ rode well, coming from way back to grab the last qualifying spot. The rolling tank was charging the whole way in a stacked LCQ.  It seems that the change in the format results in more good guys sitting on the sidelines come main event time. There have been some relatively unknown dudes sneaking in the mains while some of the regulars have run into trouble. Ryan Clark, Josh Summey, Kyle Lewis, Paul Carpenter, Eric Sorby and the Hulkster were all lined up for the LCQ.

I have said it before and will keep saying it: Josh Summey is the real deal. He had some bad luck and crashed out of a qualifying spot in his heat. He was moving up in the LCQ but ran out of time. His practice times placed him in the top ten overall. He will be top ten in the mains soon.

Josh Grant is collapsing under the weight of expectations. He is battling the track and the track is winning. He keeps lawn-darting himself; the championship is lost so now we shall see if he comes out next week and throws it down when there is no pressure.

Can we see if a UFO rider has ever won a SX main in the U.S.? Tim Ferry put the aliens on the podium in 1995 but I don’t think they have ever won. This kid Christophe Pourcel needs to stay here!

Stewart won, and RC kept it close. You just had a sense that there was no way that RC could win. Think of a cat playing with a mouse.

Kevin Windham is still being held by the aliens (might even be related to the UFO win in the Lites class). I guess they need him for more probing. He was up front for a while but was a roadblock and allowed the pack to catch up. He then hit Antonio Balbi while he was lapping him and couldn’t jump the triple allowing two guys to pass him. He faded farther back after that.

DV12 augured into the ground and caused a restart on the third lap. He is okay and walked off the track, but the greatest beneficiaries of the re-start were Reed and Red Dog. Timmy went from twelfth to third after the re-start but things weren’t quite so rosy for Nick Wey—he was in second place before the restart and then came around in twentieth after the second gate. That’s teamwork, but in a bad way. I tried to call Nick after the race but he red buttoned me.

Chad Reed was good. He was that thirty-seconds-behind-kind-of-good but still, with a shattered collarbone, fractured shoulder, and open wounds on his head, he did well. Terry Boyd kept going on and on about his injuries. Hey, Terry, there’s a war going on and those guys are the “warriors” and the “heroes?” The general MX media is really going to town on this injury stuff. I want to see x-rays and doctor’s reports or some rider walk on water before I believe what I hear.

Travis Preston rode really well again. He would look even better riding under the vacant Honda tent. He was sixth or so in the main and passed Michael Bryne, Ferry and the alien posing as K-Dub to get fourth. Maybe the low-pressure Factory Connection setup appeals to him? Two more laps, and he would’ve passed the medical miracle for third.

Kyle Lewis won the LCQ and looked one thousand times better this week. It’s good to see the last active link to Rollerball still out there. I asked him about Ross. “I never really raced against him too much, but he was a super nice guy off the track,” says Lewis.  “On the track, he didn’t care who you were or what you did; he was going to be the boss on the track. I never actually got to hang out with the guy off the track, but I heard he kept Canada proud.” Thanks for that, Kyle … we think.

I also tried to get Kawasaki team manager, Mike Fisher, to give me his Rollerball stories, but he said he didn’t really have any. He told me that all he remembers is that Ross acted like he was Bob Hannah when Fish came up to Canada. I reminded him (I didn’t raise my voice, honest!) that that Ross had more titles than Bob Hannah and then Mike called security on me.

Manuel Rivas made the main again! The Spanish Armada was a force; he’s a good rider.  Can we please get some background on this two-wheeled matador? Anyone?

Paul Carpenter used his second and last provisional to make it into the main. It didn’t work out so good for him as he got a flat in the main. I have talked to a ton of people and no one can fully answer all of my questions about this new rule.  Is it WSX or AMA points? How do you decide who gets first pick for his provisional? What if two guys are tied and both need it? I can see Steve Whitlock now, playing, “Guess which hand the ball is in?” to decide which guys make it in. Seriously, I haven’t seen so many bad ideas since Jaws 2, 3 and 4.

I have seen four Supercrosses this year and whether it’s Josh Hansen, Michael Willard or Joe Oehloff, the KTM riders are struggling in the whoops. When I worked there, we had tons of problems dialing in the suspension for the whoops—six years later, it seems they are still struggling.

Hot Sauce is having an exciting year. He got into it with Stewart in Toronto (rightfully so) then last week at A1 he was in Ferry’s face after the main wanting to brawl. Then he talked some poop to Racer X about the fact that Timmy took him out. This week, he looked over and hit Bubba in a turn, and then they got into it after the race. I did see them end the discussion with the “cool guy knuckle punch” so I guess they made up. Thirty feet later, he was up in Windham’s grill talking about something. Maybe he can be Macho Man to Evan’s Hulkster? I’m half expecting Bobby “The Brain” Heenan to show up as his manager next week.

Kawasaki had a good night. They won the Supercross (bad idea #3) main and took four out of the top five in the Lites (#4) class. James Stewart, Sr. even dusted off his “chain saw” move that I thought he retired. What is it with this family? I see more dancing with them than in an hour of Soul train. All we need now is Malcolm to do the moonwalk and we have the MX version of the Commodores.