CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 56 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 8, 2019 P57
450SX
In the off-season, factory teams
spend a lot of money trying to
make the motorcycles as light
as possible to maximize perfor-
mance and reduce rider fatigue,
but the scale has never been
very good at calculating the
weight of a number-one plate.
Defending champion Jason
Anderson (Rockstar Energy
Husqvarna) seemed to acknowl-
edge this after his first-ever race
as a defending champion on his
Instagram page. "Man yesterday
did not go well..." Anderson
said. "Kinda overwhelmed with
everything going on and wasn't
myself at all. Looking forward
to bringing it back around in the
next rounds..."
Anderson started near the
front, but a couple laps into the
race, Barcia made an aggressive
pass on him for third place.
"I did think I sent it up the in-
side pretty good after the triple,"
Barcia said at the post race
press conference. "I don't know
if he went down or not, but—no?
So, it was a good pass then.
[Laughs]. Rubbin's racin'. But
I knew right away that I had to
latch onto those couple guys out
front. You had to make it happen
quick, and I didn't want to risk
being in the back and run out of
roll-offs or whatnot."
Anderson went backward from
that point, eventually finishing
14th.
Barcia hung around in third for
more than half the race, while
DW15 Husqvarna's Dean Wilson
NEW DIRT
Normally, the dirt from each super-
cross venue is recycled year after
year. Supercross promoter Feld
Motorsports uses the same dirt for
supercross and Monster Jam events,
and after those events are over, the
dirt is stored nearby. The Anaheim dirt
is estimated to be 20 years old. But
this year Feld and the Dirt Wurx track
crew brought in new dirt for the riders
to race on.
CBDON'T
A few days prior to Anaheim 1, DW15
Husqvarna's Dean Wilson announced
on Instagram that he had found a
new outside sponsor: Ignite CBD.
CBD (cannabidiol) is one of the two
primary cannabinoids that come from
cannabis and hemp plants. Wilson's
partnership with Ignite came through
internet-famous Dan Bilzerian, who
is a founder of Ignite. According to
Wilson, Bilzerian/Ignite threw "a lot
of money" at his team, and he was
excited to have them on board, but
NBC Sports apparently did not share
in that excitement. Wilson was forced
to cover up the Ignite logo on his
motorcycle before the racing started.
Wilson wasn't happy about it, and nei-
ther was Bilzerian, who went to Twitter
to express his dissatisfaction: "[Exple-
tive] NBC, those [expletive] wouldn't
allow the ignite logo on our motocross
riders bike. Good news is I get more
views on my social media than your
[expletive] network does." NBC Sports
is reportedly currently discussing this
issue and may reconsider allowing
Wilson to show his logo on television
in upcoming races.
Briefly...
