Welcome to Gearhead Operations weekly observations! This is definitely your favorite Gearhead Ryan Roberts back at it again with hot takes from Supercross round 11 at Seattle Washington!
This race brought back a group we hadn't seen in a while in the 250 West riders, which brought with it a different Lawrence brother but with the same results. Jett was fastest qualifier and had a moment where he went down in the heat race when seemingly Cameron McAdoo tried to fit a square peg into a round hole and took them both down. Jett showed some visible frustration in making some hand gestures that I interpreted as "whiskey tango foxtrot" to Cameron and that was really one of the first times we have seen some immaturity from Jett in a long time. The crash between Jett and Cameron was gnarly and they were lucky to get out with both being healthy. In post-race interview Cameron rattled off the list of parts that were messed up on his bike and it was long, including a punctured fork and that takes some serious impact to accomplish.
One thing I noted in this race is that everyone races Jett ten times harder than they race anyone else on the track. This is primarily from him being "The Man" and when they race him it is their Super Bowl when and they are going to take the opportunity to show Jett what they can do.
The 450 class has been spectacular, and I can't remember a time when there you legitimately do not know who will win. After the past few weeks there are at least seven riders that if they won you would not be surprised. After qualifying Sexton of course was first, Eli was fifth and you had Adam Cianciarulo in second with Cooper Webb in eighth, so we had no idea who would win during the night show.
One moment please while I drop a hot take, ninety-degree corners in Supercross leads to boring racing. This track had several ninety-degree corners and it really removed about half the track from being able to be used for passing. Luckily, there were good rhythms that allowed some different lines to develop and allowed some decent racing and riders to get bad starts and move forward. I know track builders are limited by a lot of different parameters that are put on them, but 180 bowl turns allow much better racing.
An exciting thing did happen in a heat race where we saw Cooper Webb give a Dikembe Mutombo finger wag to Chase Sexton when he went over the finish line and take the heat race victory. These riders do not want to let Coop get that confidence he has shown in the past or they will be in a world of hurt.
The 450 main hole shot was Kevin Moranz and I know everyone had him picked as First to the Finish Line in PulpMX Fantasy. Unfortunately, he quickly went over a berm and got stuck and ended up twentieth on the night. Sexton was pushing hard but everyone watching knew exactly what was going to happen and it eventually did about seven minutes in. I do not even know how to explain what he did. Chase hit a rut weird, I guess, and somehow went over the bars and it was added to the list of weird race leading crashes he has going. Thinking about his crashes, most of them are so weird and you see nobody else crash where he does. Also, for some reason they are usually right after the finish line and there is no reason that anyone could explain why the finish line has any affect on these crashes.
Eli took over the lead after Chase went down and Webb moved in front of Roczen for second. Webb could never get close enough to give Eli a serious run at the lead and the race never really had a feel of uncertainty. Coop was also the angriest second place rider I have seen in a while after the race tonight and losing those points to Eli burned him on the inside. In this humble writer's opinion, the lack of competitive finish was due to track layout as the track did not reward a rider for pushing too hard. So now we sit with two red plates at round twelve in Glendale Arizona.
