Words (and even photos!) by Steve Matthes

We were at the legendary High Point track this weekend and I’m never really sure what to call this race. MXA, back in the day, always called it Mt Morris but when I got into being a mechanic it was called High Point. I still call it Mt Morris however half the time and High Point half the time so whatever.

The track was redone by Marc Peters, track designer to the stars, and the reviews were really positive by all accounts. Every pro rider I heard interviewed said the changes were great. I know that on Saturday it was thought the track might’ve been a little short so there was a new section put in that night to lengthen it a bit. And what would Mt Morris be without rain? The track was a mess on Saturday and a little sloppy on Sunday morning, but by the motos there was even a little dust.  And the facility itself, with the close-cut grass and all of the big infrastructures and tents, looked really cool.

Well what can you say? It was another Team Green sweep… The competition was green with envy… Gang Green won again… the good times were rolling. Whatever slogan you want to use to indicate that Kawasaki motorcycles were the best ones to have this weekend will work. James Stewart and Ryan Villopoto both smoked the field—again.  The Green Duo led 61 out of a possible 63 laps and both are putting a Randy Savage-like choke hold on the competition.

I guess I should talk about the winner, or his mechanic Mike Williamson will get on me. What can you say? Stewart rode great, stupendous and all that but honestly he seems more humble and friendly off the track this year. He’s always been kind of quiet but lately he has been speaking out on the state of things, which he should because he’s the man now.

If I HAD to complain, it’s the fact that Stewie never went balls-out this weekend and jumped the tunnel jump and this new triple thing in the back. Don’t get me wrong, nobody else jumped these things so there’s a good chance they couldn’t be done. That’s where I’m at with the number seven, complaining he didn’t jump some massive jump that nobody else tried either. I’m such an ass.

Mike Alessi once again grabbed both holeshots from an unusual gate spot. Generally the holies at High Point come from the 4^th-5^th gate from the inside and despite holeshot master Billy Ursic telling Mike one time that inside was the way to go, Mike chose to go towards the middle. It wouldn’t matter to “Toll-Free,” nothing matters to the 800 when it comes to starts--he simply gets them. All. The. Time.

Mike seems happier to finish 2-2 each and every week. He seemed okay with his finish this week but did admit he had to get back to work. He briefly passed Stewie back in the second moto in a switchback section and even though that’s a small victory, it’s something he can take with him into the off week. After the press conference Mike came over to me and told me that he wasn’t wearing “Wally” the Camelback for the first time all year. I asked him why and he said, “I wanted to prove to you that I don’t need it.” Never let it be said that the Alessi’s lack motivation, as they’ll find it from anywhere! Even from some chubby goofball writer like me.

Jake “Keith Burgie” Weimer had a new career best finish, going 2-5 for second overall. The Snake rode great, he was up front all day and with his new trainer Randy Lawrence, the sky’s the limit for the potato state newcomer. He’s got a couple of teams bidding on him as well for ’09, so no matter what; he’s looking at a bright future. Jake mentioned that he hasn’t started benefiting from RL yet but that he wasn’t in that bad of shape anyways. I personally think it’s the Canadian National experience that’s finally paying off big-time but what do I know?

Davi Millsaps was the third best 450 guy this weekend and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. He came from the back in the first moto and passed Tim Ferry and Andrew Short and pulled away. He went 3-3 in both motos for—surprise!—third overall. He’s getting close to signing with someone for 2009, but Honda reserves the right to match so I guess we’ll see what happens.

Davi said something in the press conference that caught my attention: he said that had barely done any motos this year and was looking forward to the break to get in shape. Huh?

Ryan Dungey rode great and was able to charge from 18^th to 6^th in the first moto. Overall on the day “And Dragons” went 6-2 for third overall. It was Ryan’s remarks in the press conference towards Jason Lawrence that really had the pits buzzing. I’m sure by now you know what he said (if not, watch the Racer X Post Show) and the piling on of J-Law continues. Depending on who you talk to, Jason is either the anti-Christ or a misunderstood kid. As usual, the truth probably lies in the middle but it kind of cheesed me off when two J-Law “supporters” stopped me to complain about my coverage of the kid. I was told to “give the kid a break” and “what was he supposed to do? A super-fan was handing him beers.” I swear to God I’m not making this up.

What I told these guys is that the media probably isn’t going to cut J-Law any breaks at all because at one time or another, he’s probably been hard to work with for each them. He’s the most uncooperative rider in the sport to do anything with, one of his friends even offered to do an interview with him “posing” as Lawrence because “I would know what he’s going to say anyways.”

Even with all the off track stuff going on, J-Law rode great in the first moto coming from behind to get a hard charging fourth in the first moto. Next race he was in second and looking good before his motor blew up on the fourth lap. Let’s hope his behavior off the track changes and he focuses on racing, something he’s pretty darn good at.

By the way, I thought last week that the other shoe would drop in regards to some AMA punishment for Lawrence and Josh Hill and it kind of did. They got fined 25K (but don’t have to pay it if they stay outta trouble) and put on probation for a year so that means Lawrence was off probation for, oh, about two weeks.

Someone said that they talked to Jason and he was very sedate and calm which made me expect to see him wheeled into the track on a dolly with that Hannibal Lecter half mask thing on mumbling “Hello, Ryan.”

OK, one last thing: no matter what agents and friends say I think something that David Bailey said to me captures the situation the best. The people in the industry have finally had it with both of these kid's behavior and now the smallest thing is going to be blown out of proportion because everybody is just tired of hearing the stories. It’s just too bad but it does give hacks like me things to write about!

Hill did have his best moto in a while in the second go around, finishing sixth. Hopefully, like Jason, he can keep people talking about his on-track performance.

Ryan Clark also had his best moto this year. He came damn close to holeshotting the first moto and could’ve passed Stewie back in the third turn but elected to (smartly) check up a bit. He was up front for a long time and finished eleventh. The wonders that a good start can do! His buddy Jesse “Corky” Black was telling me that he noticed right before the second moto there was a huge hole in Clark’s crankcase. With not enough time to swap engines, he stuck a wine cork in the hole and then put a piece of wood between the frame rails and engine to hold the cork in, filled it up with oil and crossed his fingers. Brilliant! He said every lap he would look and the wood was still there holding the cork in and there was plenty of oil in the bike at the end.

Nico Izzi also had a career-best moto on Sunday with a third. Nico recently broke up with his long time trainer Ron Tichenor. Seriously (and I wrote this a couple of columns ago) can we get some sort of guide to riders and the trainers? Maybe like one of those family tree things on a wall somewhere? Izzi has now chosen AX god Buddy Antunez which is more fitting anyways. An old, short, Suzuki mini king guiding a young, short, Suzuki mini king.

Still on the trainers, Broc Hepler was on the Racer X Webcast show and was pretty non-committal on whether or not he’s going to keep working with Ryan Hughes. Broc just said he’ll see when he heals up and then mumbled some other things about California. He was however, an excellent color guy on the show. Even when Weege told him he “knew” the High Point track like no other and he said he hadn’t ridden there in three years!  

I did the pit reporting on the Racer X Webcast this past weekend and it was a lot of fun. I was interviewing mechanics and generally offering my half-assed knowledge to “The Icon” David Bailey (who probably thinks I’m the biggest goofball ever when I “interviewed” Evan Ferry in the Lites moto). I asked Goose what Alessi has to do to beat Bubba and he said, “Go faster.” There was one mechanic that refused an interview because he said his rider (Short) was battling with Ferry and I’m biased towards Timmy. Don’t worry, Gothic Jay, I can be objective when I’m holding the mic and a part-time job as an online pundit, whether Timmy is racing against your rider or anyone else he can beat…. Just kidding!

Timmy Ferry went 4-4 for fourth. At a track that he usually does pretty well at, the big one-five was in third in moto one and looking good when a faster Millsaps caught him and gapped him a little bit. in the second moto, he never could get to the top three and show them what he had. I think at the end of the day, Red’s ride was like an episode of “Lost,” highly unusual and forgettable.

He did get the RC Hard Charger award presented to him at riders meeting and like I wrote last week, he was absolutely thrilled to receive a giant red “RC” trophy. In fact, I caught him right after the presentation as he was glowing over the trophy.

Villopoto is not a fan of racing a national under the lights, but I have a feeling he will be the heavy favorite in Colorado anyway….

Ivan Tedesco didn’t ride all week because of an ankle injury he got at Texas when he crashed violently near the end of the second 450 moto. This weekend, he didn’t look like the podium guy at Hangtown because of the ankle and crashed out of the second moto with, not surprisingly, an ankle injury. He’ll need the week off for sure, maybe Ivan and neighbor Ben Townley can practice wrapping each other in bubble wrap. I kid, BT101, kind of.

I’m not really sure what’s going on with Cody Cooper and his bike. I reported on the Racer X Webcast show that the Kiwi Warrior managed to get himself some cool factory Suzuki parts last week. He definitely deserves some kind of love from Suzuki for his great rides of late. So I wandered over to his pits to check out his bike and thought I noticed some cool new suspension. I asked his mechanic if he got some new parts and the Kiwi fellow with the gold tooth replied that he had. I then went over and talked to Chicken Coops and he said that he hadn’t. So I left the visit more confused than when I walked up. I tracked down Moose Racing’s Steve Van Zylun, who is a fellow Kiwi, and because every Kiwi knows all the other Kiwis in the pits, and I asked him. He said that Coops did get some new parts but it was just a clutch cover with the paint taken off that Coops thought was trick. Stay tuned next week for another episode of As the Coops Turns…

Nick Wey had his best ride of the national season at Mt Morris. Maybe he’s finally coming to terms with the KTM. In the first moto he came from 13^th to 7^th in a strong ride. The second time around he charged hard and only got passed by a riding-for-his-job-and-maybe-career Josh Hill. Nick’s 7-8 finishes got him 6^th OA. I have to find out if he got a part from “King” Kurt Nicoll’s old KTM 500.

Speaking of the GPs, my guy Josh Coppins finally had his best finish of the season this past weekend in France. The Lizard went 2-2 and made up a bunch of points in his quest for what should really be his by now, a world championship. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy and I hope he gets his roll on starting now.

Yamaha of Troy gained a rider this week. Ryan Morais made his MX debut after being sidelined with a mysterious virus for the last little bit. Whatever happened to the Epstein-Barr virus that was all the rage a few years ago? Did it just go away to another sport? Was it like the old “Mr. Yuck” commercials years ago? Anyways, all was not perfect in the YOT camp as they lost Tyler Bowers to a sprained knee for a few weeks and Enterprise Rent-a-Car is hounding J-Law’s mechanic Cory Shea to return his red car from Texas.

Sean Hamblin had two good motos at High Point, re-establishing that he’s going to be a guy that’s in the fight all summer long. It’s easy for a rider to get discouraged after he has some bad luck, as Hambone has had recently, but I’m glad to see him put in a complete good race. He went 6-9 for seventh and top privateer. I got an email from multi-time Four-Stroke champion and funny man Lance Smail this past week volunteering what he knew about Hamblin’s gas problem and passing on a suggestion to fix it. Observations: the column that dudes who were on the first four-stroke to make a SX main event read!

I don’t know much about Jarred Jet Browne but he’s been a top-twenty guy a few times this summer and that’s his real name. After a couple of emails from his agent, I guess I should talk about him. He got 10^th in the second moto at Mt Morris, he’s from Nuevo, California, he rides for the same team as Chicken Coops and he’s going to be on the RXI.com privateer profile this week. That’s about all I know about the guy.

This week on the “Bottom Line” show, which Teen Wolf managed to save on a hard drive this time, I corner Jake Weimer on his ’09 plans, speak to Mitch Payton (again) and recruit the Weege to dig up some information for me while I eavesdrop. All this and more on the “Bottom Line” show on live.motocross.com this week. I promise.

Before the season started, I picked “Dandy” Dan Reardon as my sleeper pick for the nationals, but then Dandy was just asleep in the beginning and made me look silly. Ahhhh, but have you noticed lately that the Aussie has been riding better? His manager J.C Waterhouse told me at Texas that he thinks Dan might’ve been a little surprised at the pace of a national but that he’ll adapt and get better. This weekend Dandy-Dan-Dan went 11-8 and is now quietly in seventh place in the points. He’s awake now baby!!!

Some other timbits (get it?)…

-  Andrew “Sharky” McFarlane rode great last week in Texas and I thought he turned a corner but his only highlight this weekend was pulling the holeshot in the second moto.

- Ryan Dungey mentioned in the press conference that he was growing a beard. Not sure why but I have to think that he sees me and my new “Kenny Loggins” beard and is jealous.

- Or maybe he’s trying to go all incognito so J-Law gets confused when he tries to find RD in the pits for an attempted beat down after RD’s comments in the PC.

- I hung out at the offices of Racer X on Friday going through old photos to try to find some Rollerball shots. Sadly, I couldn’t find much despite me looking through boxes and boxes for it. The guys told me I needed to get DC to help me because he knows where every photo is the whole room. However, I think he was a tad busy to look for 20 year old Ross Pederson photos.

- I did get some awesome shots of The Dogger and Ferry at Summercross when he beat the King in front of 64 people at the LA Coliseum. I was his mechanic then also, but I’m sure you guys knew that.

- I probably heard one of the top three funniest stories ever this weekend about Mike “Fubar” Farber and the “beep virus.” We were at Chili’s eating dinner and I was literally crying and choking on a Queso it was so funny. [Ed. note: Wow, thanks for that excellent prelude Matthes with, well ... no explanation at all of the beep virus. Name dropper!]

- Two time Canadian champion Michael Willard had his best ride of the season finishing in 14^th overall. Isn’t it funny how some guys turn it around on the east coast dirt? Willard is from Ohio, by the way.

- Thanks to William Ursic the third this weekend for letting me stay at his house. The online editor for Racer X Illustrated let me sleep in his bed while he slept on the couch downstairs! How nice is that? I know I really like Billy but I guarantee you I wouldn’t give up my bed for the guy. Partly because I’m like that and partly because then he would be sleeping with my wife, which she probably wouldn’t mind.

- Jake Weimer is a pretty funny kid and I think I like him. Steve Cox told me that, “He’s my Tim Ferry,” which is creepy because Steve is like, 35 and Jake is 18 or so. At least Ferry and I are age compatible if he ever got divorced and my wife hooked up with Ursic.

- In what brought a smile to my face, I saw Barry Carsten show up for his 123^rd High Point national and of course, Bear Dog made the motos and almost scored points going 22-25. It’s just not the same seeing three digits on the Bromley Suzuki.

- “Rocket” Rob Buydos had his now annual Legends Lap honoring the past heroes of the sport. Jeff Stanton, Broc Glover, Steve Lamson, Mike Fisher, Gary Semics, Tom Carson and others were wildly applauded by the crowd as they made their way around the track on machines from their era. We HAVE to get Damon Bradshaw out one time. I’ll pay for the ticket…seriously.

- The moto gods rewarded Ryan Sipes with good luck. The Kentucky Kid went 5-6 on the day and was very fast. After the disaster last week, all the KTM boys rode good. With Wey doing well also, the mood will be better this week in the shop I’m sure.

Well the AMA Toyota Motocross Series takes a week off and everybody gets some R&R ... everybody except this fearless reporter! I’m going to travel up to the motherland for the CMRC Canadian National in Regina (Steve Cox is giggling right now like a school girl) to report on the happenings up there. I’m “super-pumped” to be going up there to see my buddy Danny Brault and help with the RXC Moto-Show and maybe write an Observations column if everybody promises not to get upset at some jokes. Email me your thoughts on the AMA and CMRC Nationals at matthes@racerxcanada.com. Thanks for reading!