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III EMPIRE OF DIRT
BY STEVE COX
O
ver 20 years ago, Eric
Peronnard created the
U.S. Open of Supercross,
which was a distinct event in the
MX/SX off-season, held in the
MGM Grand Garden Arena. It
featured top supercross racers
who were essentially racing Aren-
across, and it paid out $100,000
to the winner. It also allowed the
public to bet on the racing, which
was really cool for a while. Early
on, it featured the Open class (the
stars), a Supermini class, and a
Sound of Thunder (four-stroke)
class. After 7-8 years, four-strokes
took over completely, so that killed
the novelty of the four-stroke class,
and eventually Feld Motorsports
(under a previous owner/title of ei-
ther Clear Channel or Live Nation)
took over and it began to become
homogenized to look and sound
just like the regular AMA Super-
cross series, with a 250 and a 450
class. The sparkle began to fade,
then it disappeared completely
after about a decade.
But a market still existed for an
off-season supercross-style event,
and in 2011, Feld Motorsports
created the Monster Energy Cup.
Still in Las Vegas, the MEC was to
feature a tamed-down track, with-
out whoops, where the promoters
hoped racers from the MXGP se-
ries in Europe would feel comfort-
able enough to come to America
and give "supercross" a go. It
would still pay $100,000 to the
winner, unless a racer could man-
age to win all three main events,
and that would pay $1 million.
Ryan Villopoto immediately
cashed in on that $1 million at the
first event, but Feld Motorsports
managed not to pay that huge
sum out for a few years, until
2017, when Marvin Musquin took
the $1 million. He was followed by
Eli Tomac doing the same thing in
2018, along with a fan who also
got $1 million for Tomac's flush.
After Musquin's win in 2017,
representatives from Feld ex-
pressed their joy with the "Mon-
ster Million" getting paid out. They
RUNNING ITS COURSE?
