Howdy Y'all and welcome to back to MotoSport.com Gearhead weekly raging inferno takes! I am your favorite MotoSport.com Gearhead Ryan Roberts here to give you all the important takes from Monster Energy AMA Supercross Round 5 from Detroit Rock City!
One thing that has been circulating that I wanted to talk about is that the Dirt Works crew has stated, with direction from, the AMA that they will not be building whoops that are more than 9 in a row and no more Dragon backs on the course for the time being. The reason cited for this was safety of the riders and I can get behind that. Mike Muye, the Director of Supercross has stated that they have data to show that less whoops equals less injuries, and I can believe him. I haven't seen the data so I cannot corroborate his statement, but it does make sense. It also brings up the question of what balance do we make from safety and competitiveness? Some teams want all the whoops and some want less whoops and the teams that want more whoops want them to separate out the competition. Mike had stated in an interview with PulpMX that they will be adjusting the number of whoops between 9 and 14 so this will be an interesting trend to watch as the season unfolds.
Jett Lawrence essentially walked away with the victory in Detroit and has won two races this season and both have been wire to wire. This seems to possibly lead to a trend that if Jett gets the start it is over. This is what he also did during the outdoor motocross season last year that essentially no one passes him ever. At this race no one really gave him a push. Chase Sexton made up some ground but was never close enough to even show him a wheel. The only scary moment was close to the end where Jett hit a rock in a rut and almost endo'd, but that was the only time you could possibly see someone besides Jett winning.
One interesting thing was Eli Tomac looking like he had a boat anchor attached to him. He started well and rather quickly faded back to tenth after a great start. He has had a history with arm pump, and maybe that was what was going on here, but he went backwards like he was sitting still. A few times he appeared to just let guys go bye. Coming off a second place I did not expect this so we will watch and see what happens at the Glendale round coming up.
The 250 group opened up the East division and Austin Forkner took the win in the inaugural 2024 round. It is great seeing him win and he deserves winning after all the injuries and time off he has had. I hope he can keep the bike upright this season and show everyone what he is truly capable of in the series. Max Anstie finished second and this must be the first time in the US series he has ever come in with hype about how he will finish. Now there was a huge pile up in the first turn that took out 2 of the Monster Energy Pro Circuit Riders, the entire Triumph team, and many other riders, so we will need to see another sample to determine if Max is for real or just a flash in the pan.
One interesting note, the first turn pile up caused an unusual wardrobe malfunction for Cameron McAdoo and I will just leave it at that. He was able to get up and finish 15th and Cameron has to be the one of the toughest riders ever to ride and can take a severe beating and still finish the race.
That is it for this week's MotoSport.com Gearhead weekly observations. And remember, if you ever need anything for a street bike, dirt bike, UTV, ATV or more, just hit up any of the amazing Gearheads at Motosport.com and we will get you hooked up! Until next week, we will see you at Glendale!
