SUPERCROSS
RED BULL STRAIGHT RHYTHM
OCTOBER 4, 2014
AUTO CLUB RACEWAY FAIRPLEX/POMONA, CALIFORNIA
P66
and quickly moved on to the
semi-final, while Hill did likewise
with Yamaha-mounted Nico Izzi.
Meanwhile, GEICO Honda's
reigning 250cc Eastern Regional
SX champ Justin Bogle had his
hands absolutely full with ama-
teur-standout teammate Jordon
Smith. Bogle had to do three
races against his future pro team-
mate, who showed the champ
no respect in the head-to-head
event, and Bogle barely held him
off in the final race after Smith
made an absolutely amazing run
FORK IT OVER
Yoshimura Suzuki's James Stewart
is the pioneer of running incredibly
stiff forks in Supercross. Early in his
450cc career, he was the only guy in
the stadium whoops who could skip
a whoop with his front wheel, have
it drop into the valley between two
whoops, and not go over the bars,
and that was largely because his forks
were so much stiffer than anyone
else's at the time. Stiff forks also help
his trademark "Bubba Scrub" tech-
nique, as the harder the front end is,
the easier it is to get the front end to
break traction on the face of the jump.
Unlike in turns, the less front-end
traction the better when scrubbing
jumps. But the problem is, the stiffer
your forks, the harder it is to get your
bike to turn well, so there's a balance
that must be struck as long as a track
has turns. And almost all tracks have
turns. Almost.
At the Red Bull Straight Rhythm,
Stewart's tuner Rene Zapata said that
Stewart was, indeed, running his forks
"one full setting stiffer" than what he
normally runs in Supercross, which
likely did a lot to help him, especially
when braking into the speed breaks
(walls) and hitting the whoops.
A lot of guys caught on throughout
the Straight Rhythm. For example,
BTOSports.com KTM's Justin Bray-
ton, who just switched to the team
officially on October 1, made his forks
three clicks stiffer than what he would
run on a regular Supercross track, but
he knew he should've done a lot more
with the front end of his 450 SX/F.
"For me, obviously only having
a couple days on the bike, I just
basically rode with what I've ridden,"
Brayton said. "It's really good—it's
awesome on the track. I just think for
here, if I do it again, which I'd love to,
It was Stewart
versus Stewart in
one of the bracket
rounds. James
(7) edged out his
younger brother
Malcolm, who
went on to finish
third.
