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/634995
VOL. 53 ISSUE 4 FEBRUARY 2, 2016 P55 Briefly... When people talk about factory moto- cross/supercross teams, they always seem to focus on the machines them- selves. It's easy to do that, with all of the unobtainable suspension parts, engine parts, or even really awesome titanium bolts and gas tanks. But the thing that makes racing for a factory team so good is the people, not the parts. Their expertise and ingenuity is what does it. Here's one example: Honda's Jason Haines (who goes by "Gothic J") noticed everyone was having the same issue with adjusting Cole Seely's KYB air forks. Because Seely runs his handlebars a little bit more forward in the triple-clamps than teammate Trey Canard does, in order to bleed the air from the forks, the team kept having to loosen a bunch of stuff to move the bars. So what did Gothic J do? He went back to the Honda machine shop and made this tool on the lathe, which does a perfect job fitting around the handlebar. After he verified it worked, he made a couple more, including one for Seely's van. Problem: solved. There's no doubt that Honda's Trey Canard is tough. Last week at Ana- heim 2, he had his right hand landed on in his heat race, and despite his hand being absolutely mangled (but nothing being broken) he returned to the track to make the main out of his semi, only to get bumped off the track in the main event and DNF. In Oakland, Ca- nard showed up with his hand all stitched up, but said that as of the previous Wednesday he thought he wouldn't be able to race. But later in the week, he was able to ride more effectively, so he showed up to Oak- land to give it a run. Unfortunately, even though he qualified a solid 10th in practice, Canard's hand swelled up, so he decided to play it safe and give it another week. With "El Nino" hitting the west coast, a lot of races have been run under threat of rain this year, but Oakland marked the first time so far in 2016 where the day's schedule had to be adjusted because of weather. There was heavy rainfall the night before the race, and although the rain stopped by morning, there was a lot of clean- up that had to be done around the track. Because of this, the riders' track walk was delayed about an hour, and the practice schedule was adjusted to drop out one of the three practices the racers are used to getting. By the end of practice, though, the track was so dry it was actually dusty. "It definitely didn't go as planned here in Oakland tonight," Blake Baggett said of his first outing of the year since suffering mul- tiple injuries while practicing pre-season.. "It was my first race back after a shoulder surgery. I felt pretty frisky in practice and got a really good start in the heat race. I was in fourth and then got into third and was battling. I got pushed high in a turn and went to seat-bounce a jump and just committed to some- thing I probably shouldn't have, but it was in the heat of the moment. I got wheel-spin off the face and ended up endoing a rhythm triple and went down on my bad shoulder. From there the night was just tough. It [the shoulder] was just really sore. I'll have to go back and rehab a little bit, but luckily everything I got surgery on is still good, just a little muscle sore. I fought through the night and dug deep, but was definitely in sur- vival mode from lap one of the Main event, so we'll see how we can do next week in Arizona." Rockstar Energy Husqvarna's Jason Anderson recovered nicely from a midpack start in the main. "I rode great this weekend," said Anderson. "If I could just get a good start I could be battling for a spot on the box. I had a little bit of a sketchy moment with Reed on the double-triple-double. I thought he was going to go triple and I clipped his back tire and almost looped it. All in all I came out fourth so it's not a bad deal."