P132
CN
III EMPIRE OF DIRT
BY STEVE COX
with quite a few of my own.
I became a bit of a master of
taking guys out from in front of
them. If there was a guy all over
me and I couldn't shake him,
one of my go-to moves was to
fake like I was going to take an
outside line and bait the guy into
the inside rut, then I'd brake hard
and dive into that rut before him.
When I did it right, I'd clip his
front wheel with my swingarm
and he'd highside (usually pretty
gently, since it worked best in
tight turns, so speeds were rela-
tively low). I'd come in with tire
tracks on my swingarm probably
once a month or so.
But here's the thing, looking
back at the history of our sport,
there's a line between what has
always been acceptable, and
what isn't, and that line isn't
always definite. For example,
cross-jumping (hitting a jump
and crossing into someone
else's line in the air) other rac-
ers is not acceptable. Neither
is drifting into someone else's
line while skimming the whoops.
And the final no-no is the classic
T-bone, where the racer on the
inside of a turn hits the side of
the other racer's motorcycle with
his front wheel. Those things can
TAKEOUT ISN'T JUST FOR DINNER
A
t the Foxborough
Supercross a little
over a week ago,
Red Bull KTM's Marvin
Musquin led the entire
main event, only for Mon-
ster Energy Kawasaki's Eli
Tomac to sneak by as the
racers got the white flag.
A few turns later, Musquin
took probably the only shot
he was going to have on
the final lap and just abso-
lutely dirtied Tomac.
And then the internet
exploded.
Most of what I saw was
anti-Musquin sentiment,
and I'm just left wondering
what's going on with our sport.
The first time I got taken out
was at Perris Raceway when I
was probably 12 years old, back
in 1989. Another kid just came
into this corner and cleaned me
out. I came into the pits crying,
"Dad, he took me out! Did you
see that?! That's not fair!"
My dad responded with seven
words:
"You shouldn't have left the
door open."
That was it. He had abso-
lutely no sympathy for me. And
I learned. I learned all kinds of
ways to defend against those
sorts of moves, and I came up
Eli Tomac (right) didn't take kindly
to Marvin Musquin's pass that left
Tomac on the ground at Foxborough.
