Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1180438
VOLUME 56 ISSUE 43 OCTOBER 29, 2019 P125 said it was a good thing for racers to win the prize. They were a little less enthusiastic about paying $2 million the very next year, though. So, for the 2019 Monster En- ergy Cup, it definitely seemed like Feld threw everything they could at the racers in an attempt to prevent anybody from taking home the Monster Million: For the first time ever, one of the three main events would be run backward on the racetrack, which created quite a few challenges in track design. There were also three different starts for the three main events, with two starts inside the stadium (one turning left, one turning right to go backward on the track) and one start outside the stadium (into a grass left-hand turn). It's hard to say whether or not these changes actually prevented anybody from winning the Mon- ster Million, but nobody won it this year. It's only been won three times in nine years, after all. But the changes may have kept many racers from racing. While Monster Energy-spon- sored teams showed up—with Monster Energy Yamaha's Justin Barcia and Aaron Plessinger on- hand, as well as Monster Energy Kawasaki's Eli Tomac and Adam Cianciarulo—most of the rest of the supercross regulars sat the event out: Both Red Bull KTM racers (defending SX Champ Cooper Webb and 2017 Monster Million winner Marvin Musquin) sat the event out, as did Rockstar Energy Husqvarna's 2018 Super- cross champ Jason Anderson and his teammate Zach Osborne. JGR Suzuki sat out altogether, and Honda's Ken Roczen, who had just won the Red Bull Straight Rhythm, was also a no- show. A couple GP regulars did show up, though, with current MXGP World Champ Tim Gajser racing the MEC for Honda, along with KTM-mounted Jordi Tixier. It's unclear how much of an in- fluence the format changes were in preventing racers from wanting to race the event this year, but it was definitely not a deep field at all. Two of the racers I mentioned above told me that the backward- racing element was one of the rea- sons they decided to sit the event out. And, in the end, that decision may have saved their season—or at least their off-season. In the very first (untimed) practice session of the day, going backward on the track, Tixier went down in the rhythm section just past the start straightaway, as he clipped one of the jumps and en- doed right into the berm at the end of the straight. He was KO'd and out for the night. In the final prac- tice session of the day, also going backwards on the track, Rockstar Energy Husqvarna's Dean Wilson (who was fast and feeling it all weekend, and who finally has a factory contract before the year starts, with Husky for 2020) also clipped a jump in the same sec- tion and also went down big, right into the berm. For Wilson, the end result was a dislocated hip. The normal recovery time for this sort of injury is about six months, which means he very likely has not only lost his entire off-season of preparation for 2020, but he will likely miss at least the first half of the AMA Supercross series (if not the whole thing). Wilson showed the video of the crash on his Instagram page, first showing him making the jump clean earlier in the session, and then showing his big crash from a couple different angles. And he said the reason he came up short and went over the bars was due to the fact that there was less of a lip where he hit the first jump the lap that he crashed, and that was because it was where rac- ers were landing when the track went the other way. Essentially, the crash might have happened because of the race format, although Dirt Wurx changed the section for the night show after it bit two of the night's star racers. After seeing this, I wouldn't be surprised if even more top racers will begin sitting out the MEC, and ironically that could actually make the Monster Million easier to win for Monster-sponsored racers like Eli Tomac or Adam Cianciarulo, despite the fact that it seems Feld instituted these changes to help avoid paying the money out. Although title sponsor Monster Energy has signed on to sponsor the event for multiple years, with shallow fields as of late, let's hope the MEC doesn't follow in the foot- steps of the U.S. Open. CN