MOTOCROSS
RED BULL STRAIGHT RHY THM
OCTOBER 5, 2019
L A COUNT Y FAIRGROUNDS / POMONA, CALIFORNIA
P78
Team Suzuki (Enzo Lopes), and a
not-so-moto-famous Ricky Fowler
outfit (Pierce Brown, racing as pro
golfer and moto enthusiast Ricky
Fowler). And of course, Ronnie
Mac just came as Ronnie Mac.
Following Ronnie Mac's lead (sort
of) were Ryan Morais (racing as
himself, but outfitted as a KTM
team member of yesteryear), Aus-
tin Politelli, Alex Ray, Tevin Tapia
(on a YZ315 stroker), Joey Crown,
Max Vohland, Josh Hansen and a
few others.
250cc
In the 250cc bracket, most of
the pre-race favorites went out
early. Ryan Villopoto ("Jeremy
McGrath") lost in two straight
Brandon Hartranft
(left) and Roczen met
in the final. Roczen
finished him off early
but Hartranft took a
well-deserved and hard-
earned second.
factory 450. With more testing time,
he could be in for the 2020 event.
He also added that the feedback he's
gotten about his tough outing as part
of Team USA last weekend has been
entirely positive and he's still glad he
went.
KX500 SUPERCROSS
Tyler Bowers has spent quite a bit
of time recently racing a KX500
just for fun, and he came into this
year's Red Bull Straight Rhythm
following quite a bit of social-media
back-and-forth between he and his
only other 500cc competitor at the
event, Travis Pastrana. Pastrana
came armed with his "RM-Zilla"—a
Suzuki RM-Z chassis with a Honda
CR500 engine. Pastrana had one
major advantage in that his chassis
is modern and more adept at han-
dling the kinds of obstacles found
on the Straight Rhythm course, but
Bowers had the advantage of not
throwing backflips in the middle of
every run. "The hardest thing about
getting used to this bike on a track
like this is the chassis flexes like a
Harley," Bowers said. "Sometimes,
I land from a jump, and the thing
twists underneath me, and I don't
know if I'm even going to hit the
next jump straight!" At one time
during their early runs, Bowers
got some wicked headshake right
before the jump that Pastrana was
back-flipping over every lap. "I was
going through the on-offs and tried
to wheelie the last tabletop be-
Briefly...
