2020 Glendale Supercross | Kickstart

2020 GLENDALE SUPERCROSS | COMPLETE COVERAGE

Four down, 13 to go. The 2020 Monster Energy Supercross Series is officially in full swing, as teams have now paid their annual visit to the arid desert of Arizona and competed in the first Triple Crown race of the season in the 2020 Glendale Supercross. Anticipation was high for the night’s intense races, thanks to three different winners in each class at the prior rounds and a close pace that separated the top riders by only fractions of a second on the stopwatch. When all was said and done, Ken Roczen and Austin Forkner emerged as the overall winners (the first riders to win multiple events this season) and the championship got another shakeup. Here’s a rundown of the things we saw and heard during our two days at State Farm Stadium…

Sorry that this is a day late. The past two days have been a week.

THE TRACK

With an opening at one endzone that allows the grass field to be moved in and out of the venue to grow in natural sunshine, State Farm Stadium is by far the biggest space of any stadium on the circuit (Daytona doesn’t count). And the Dirt Wurx crew made very good use of the floor with a track that had stretched out lanes of obstacles, a start straightaway that was longer than an NFL field, a sand section, and switch-back bowl turns that made for minute-plus lap times. The dirt was exactly what one would expect in the desert; wet and heavy in the morning, hard-packed and slick by the night show. Riders had to be careful not to get too eager with the throttle, especially when they exited fast turns and entered the flat patches, and the shiny path around the entire track made it clear that everyone was more or less doing the same line. It was certainly entertaining to watch riders link together a fast lap during qualifying, especially with the big jump combinations and quads that were built into the layout. But racing? Eh, we might need to watch the race a third time to really get a fair assessment, because there was little to separate riders out there and it put an emphasis on perfection lap after lap. In an era where much of the 450 class is made up of past champions, maybe that’s the intent?

FORKNER

To call Austin Forkner’s ride at Glendale “clutch” is an understatement. The Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki rider put himself in contention for the championship with his win at round two in St. Louis, then slammed the mat at Anaheim Two and was put 22-points back of leader Justin Cooper. A rider with a knack for hanging it out but seemingly always on the risk of disaster, he’s historically been good in the Triple Crown format and eyed the Arizona race as his chance to claw back up the standings. Qualifying was fair, with Forkner third overall in single-lap speed and just behind the Star Racing teammates of Ferrandis and Cooper, but he upped the pace when it came time to race. Excellent starts put Forkner at the front of the field in Race One and that he pulled clear of the competition in the early laps made it impossible for Ferrandis to close the gap later on, and in Race Two he pressured Derek Drake until the rookie leader made a mistake and handed over the top spot. With 1-1 finishes to start the night, all he needed to do was make it through Race Three somewhere close to the top-five. It was apparent that Forkner wasn’t willing to push in the last race, and when Dylan Ferrandis hurriedly made passes in an attempt to get to the lead, Forkner followed in his wake and crossed the line in third place, which was more than enough for the overall win. The 26-point win, plus incoming championship leader Justin Cooper’s struggles, helped Forkner chop the margin between the two down to just 10 points. After the race, we asked Forkner if the current plan is to go for controlled, consistent finishes in order to chip away at the championship or if he’s taking the balls out speed and race win approach. The answer was a bit mixed and he stated, “I have to go faster than everyone else but also not make a mistake, and the other guys are really fast. So, that’s what everyone here is trying to do: be the fastest guy but not make any mistakes. Those two things are tough to put together, to go balls-out speed but not make mistakes. That’s what I have to do and what everyone is trying to prevent me from doing.” With six races left, just two more before a long break, he has the time to make it happen.

FERRANDIS

After an eventful night at Anaheim Two, many wondered how Dylan Ferrandis would respond on the track. Would the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider make cautious passes on the competition, stay away from the fans, or block out the noise and focus on the fourth round of the series? Well, it turned out to be a bit of everything. The team decided that Ferrandis should skip any autograph signing for the time being in an effort to prevent some mouthy “fan” from coming out from behind the keyboard and the Frenchman downplayed the severity of the situation at every opportunity. He and Craig were spotted chatting during the morning track walk, which dispelled any idea of retaliation from Craig, and Ferrandis owned the top spot on the scoring tower throughout the qualifying sessions. But starts have long been an issue and Ferrandis again was shuffled to the middle of the pack in the three gate drops, something he said was a personal issue. “We understand the problem we had for the first two rounds and the team made a big change to improve that. This week was much better, but during the race tonight it was just me. I missed my start and out of the gate, it’s always the same problem and the thing is I don’t understand why. This week we are going to understand. I move on and it’s frustrating because when I miss my start, it gives me more problems to get back to the front.” The passes through the pack were as clean as could be and put him in second place for each race and he was again arguably the fastest person on the track at certain moments, which is the only thing he’s concerned about. It’s very, very clear that the only objective Ferrandis has on the track is to win and he openly stated that the comments from pundits and fans have no impact on his life, evident in the zero people he follows on social media.

MOSIMAN

This is an important year in the Michael Mosiman-Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing project. With a few seasons under his belt, the young rider is now expected to be in the mix for podium finishes every weekend, and then a championship contender in 2021. But the season has been a bit bumpy for Mosiman, like the way he rode every single lap including the LCQ at Anaheim Two and that he was not the highest-ranked Husqvarna rider in the championship for a time, and a sense of concern was starting to come out. That changed in Arizona and with 4-4-6 finishes, he claimed the last step on the stage for his first career SX podium and is now tied with Jacob Hayes for sixth in points. There’s no doubt that Mosiman has the bike and talent to be on the box each week but doing so has been blocked by crashes and run-ins with other riders. Should Mosiman be able to stay out of the chaos that is the 250 class, he’ll pop plenty more champagne corks and could steal plenty of points away from the championship contenders.

HARTRANFT & HAYES

Like last week, we feel like these two need to be written about together, especially because they amassed about the same amount of points on the night and locked up spots in the top-five. Brandon Hartranft has been the better finishers of the friendly duo, as he posted two consecutive podium finishes and proved that the Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/KTM’s decision to start with a fresh lineup in 2020 was worth doing. We’ll have more with Hartranft later in the week, but just know this: now that he has a feel for standing on the podium, no other spot in the running order with suffice. His only goal is to collect trophies and further prove that he’ll be a force in the 250 class come 2021.

Glendale was the perfect place for Hayes to get his first top-five finish of the season, as it was the home race for his Gas Monkey/AJE Motorsports team and there was plenty of attention put his way during the weekend. A few things to point out: Hayes spent much of the offseason dealing with a shoulder injury that he suffered in Australia and his Husqvarna FC 250 couldn’t be any more different than the Yamaha YZ250F he had in 2020 so that he’s riding this well with limited time shows there’s plenty of potential. As for the Gas Monkey/AJE Motorsports crew, this result is big. Tony Eyrich’s team has the presence of a factory level squad, which is thanks to his history in boat racing, but it’s not directly in the feeder system of the Husqvarna factory line and they seem to be on their own much of the time, with little shared tech or data. Should Hayes continue to post finishes in the top-five, we’d expect more support from the industry to get behind the AJE Motorsports squad.

OLDENBURG & CLOUT

Mitchell Oldenburg’s career has become known for sudden bursts of speed and some hard crashes, but it seems like he’s starting to have a little less of both now and is instead a quick, consistent force in the 250 class. The Penrite Honda rider went 7-7-7 at Glendale for sixth overall, which is a solid result by any measure, and Oldenburg’s working to climb out the hole he dug with a poor finish at Anaheim One.

Luke Clout is about where we figured he’d be in his 250 West Coast run. A bigger guy that’s spent the past few years on the 450 back home in Australia, Clout has adapted well to the smaller bike and is on pace with the American field that has spent much of their lives on Supercross tracks. A run-in with Justin Cooper put Clout on the ground late in one of the Glendale races and hurt his final result, but he still put in another top-10 finish and is ninth in the championship, one spot back of teammate Oldenburg. That Clout was able to uncork the big triple-double out of a hairpin turn proves there’s some power in the Twisted Development engine.

As for the Penrite Honda team, the Aussie squad is doing well in their first US season and is working to build a strong relationship with Honda’s American branch (they are the factory Honda team down under, by the way). How so? They offered to lend Mitchell Oldenburg to the ailing GEICO Honda team for two rounds in exchange for increased support in the future. That’s a big thing, as the two teams share no sponsors other than Honda. From what we’ve heard, GEICO Honda entertained the idea but the higher-ups in Torrance decided that it would be best to just park the truck for Oakland, rather than turn everything upside down for a short time. Another gesture of goodwill was in their graphic kits for the weekend, which featured kangaroos and Ayers Rocks as a celebration of Australia Day, during what has to be one of the more trying times in the country’s recent history. A portion of the profits from every SKDA kit sold, including the replica for Penrite Honda and Broc Tickle’s Husqvarna, sold will go to help relief efforts for the wildfires.

MARTIN

Alex Martin’s season, like the rest of the JGRMX/Yoshimura/Suzuki Factory Racing team, has been a mix of ups and downs. AMart and the Suzuki team have proved they have what it takes to dice with the powerful blue-orange-red-white-green bikes on the track, but tricky obstacles like long whoop pads, a suspension setting issue, and a midweek crash kept Martin from making the most of the weekend. Martin told us about the crash at the end of the race, that he spent a night in the hospital because of the swelling in his leg and was iffy about racing Glendale, but with no other available rider on the team, he sacked it up and went to the starting line. All things considered, a seventh-place result isn’t terrible, and it keeps Martin fifth in the championship chase.

As for JGRMX, this is another challenging chapter in the team’s history. Suzuki’s support is said to be at an all-time low and might be even less in the future and two of their 450 riders are sidelined with leg injuries (Savatgy hopes to be back in the middle to the late part of the SX season, Noren is about 12 weeks away from getting on the bike), so there’s a small amount of yellow on the track. It sounds like things should be better come Tampa, as they will for sure have Jimmy Decotis in the 250 class and it’s all but certain that there will be two more riders joining the lineup: Isaac Teasdale in the 250 class, Broc Tickle in the 450 class. Stay tuned…

COOPER

Justin Cooper was practically perfect in the first three races of the season. A win at round one put the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider in control of the championship early and he backed it up with a pair of second-place finishes at St. Louis and Anaheim Two, which helped him extend his championship lead. All looked well in Cooper’s world at Arizona until a hard slam during the first timed qualifying session left him with a busted helmet and clearly rattled by the crash. When he slowly walked off the track and left the bike in the sand, we figured it was going to be a zero-point day, but he quickly shook off the issue and logged a lap that was within the top-five. Impressive.

If Cooper was still feeling the effects of the crash in the first race of the night, we wouldn’t be surprised, because another incident left his bike twisted up and put him at risk of being lapped by leader Austin Forkner. He got going and finished the race in 17th, posted a solid ninth-place result in Race Two, and shocked the field with a big win in Race Three. Much like his performance at the Motocross of Nations, Cooper isn’t one to buckle when in pain or under pressure, and his victory in the night’s last race is the only reason he finished ninth overall. Still the championship leader with a three-point margin over teammate Ferrandis, this was the best outcome for a worst-case scenario.

CRAIG

Christian Craig did a damn good job of putting Anaheim Two behind him. Though every bloodthirsty watcher wanted the GEICO Honda rider to settle the score with Ferrandis, Craig made it clear that there would be no physical payback and that a good finish would be the best sort of “revenge.” The Arizona track suited Craig, as he mastered the long whoops and was precise on the hard-packed dirt for TK spot in the qualifying results.

But things went awry in the night show and a crash during Race TK resulted in a broken hand, some cuts on his face, and a DNF. With this, Craig joins teammate Jett Lawrence on the sidelines for the final two races to the opening run of the 250 West Coast region, an unfortunate blow for a rider that was in the mix for a true podium finish over the last few weeks.

ROCZEN

Is this the start of something? Ken Roczen looked very quick and very, very controlled on the track in Glendale. Think less blazing speed, more precision, and proper technique. Leading the pack isn’t new for the Team Honda HRC rider and he spent all but one registered lap in the top spot on Saturday night (those red flag restarts voided the other stats) on his way to a 1-1-1 sweep of the Triple Crown. For a rider to win all three races in a night, against this field, is a statement and for Roczen, it put a little more respect on his current rank of the championship leader. With teammate Justin Brayton on Showa suspension, Roczen has a stable source to compare settings with (past teammate Cole Seely was a KYB guy). After the issue that was Anaheim One, it’s clear that rider and team are doing what they need to in order to get a suitable setting for Roczen to run at a high-speed but resist a dreaded kick.

Do you have Roczen in as a favorite for the title? Yes, that sounds strange to say, considering his bike is currently outfitted with the red plates, but some still want to see more results from the front-runner before they anoint him the third different champion in as many years. Right now, everything is in Roczen’s favor (healthy/happy/confident on the bike) and he’s in a much better spot than he in the past two seasons. His riding on the track is much different than it was during his last long run of success in 2017, as it seems less on the edge, and that could be the deciding factor for him. Think back on the past SX seasons when Roczen was in the hunt for titles and remember how many hard crashes he suffered while pushing the limits, especially back in the RCH days. If he’s not pushing to that risky level but still on the box weekly, it will be hard for riders to steal points away.

TOMAC

This is the best start to a Supercross season for Eli Tomac that we can remember. The Monster Energy Kawasaki avoided hitting any landmines in the first two rounds, even if he didn’t get on the podium, then snagged his first win of the season in dominant form at round three and put him within sight of the top of the standings. A rider with a solid record at the Triple Crown (who remembers his surprise Triple Crown championship award?) everyone was eager to see how Tomac would fare over the course of multiple motos. Would he rip around the wide-open track and pick off riders after a so-so start, or would he nab the holeshot and settle in?

It was a little of both. Tomac led the opening lap of Race One, was passed by Roczen and stayed within a few seconds of him all the way to the finish line. Race Two was marked by a fifth-place start and a push up to second place in the opening laps, but by that time the leader was too far gone to make a run. Race Three was the toughest of the night, as he came around on lap one outside of the top-10 and spent the next 11 laps picking his way through the pack for a third-place score and second overall on the night. Though far from a flawless night, it showed that Tomac can score points even when the situation isn’t the best, and he’s eight down from Roczen in the standings. These next five races will be key for Tomac because he could stack up results and turn up the speed at Daytona, which is arguably his best race of each year.

ANDERSON

Jason Anderson is the only rider in the 450 class to finish in the top-five at the first four rounds this year. Yeah, while some have been praised for their flashes of speed in spite of one poor result, the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing rider has gone 5-3-5-3 to start the season. The Arizona round is basically a home race for the New Mexican and he looked at home on the hard-packed dirt, much more so than others, and he went 5-3-2 through the night’s races. The red flag in the last race halted what could have been his first win of the year because he got to the front early while stiff competition Roczen and Tomac were much further back. Anderson could continue to plug away at this pace and finish the year without issue, but a win in the next few rounds will be helpful to his title chances. Either way, El Hombre is going to make it interesting.

WEBB

The defending champion was much improved from Anaheim Two, but there were still a few dings during the day in Arizona, particularly the whoops. Webb has said that there were some early setup issues on his Red Bull KTM, as he and the team changed things from 2019 in hopes of finding a perfect setting, but it’s a work in progress. 8-5-4 finishes in Arizona put Webb fourth overall on the day, which is nothing to scoff at, especially for a rider that’s not exactly known for his prowess on hard, slick tracks. The looming East Coast swing is where Webb could really be his best, and we could get a glimpse of that this coming weekend in the dark, rutted dirt of Oakland.

OSBORNE

Zach Osborne had one of those days at Glendale. The Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing was on the ground more than he ever could have expected, sometimes due to his own mistakes and other times because of situations that were out of his control, and he went 22-11-22 (technically, the last result was a DQ because he left the stadium during the red flag and then returned to the track, a no-no that slipped by the race officials until later) for an 18th place result. Keep in mind this is Osborne’s second season on the big bike and making it through every round without issue is something that takes riders years to figure out. Osborne has a little longer on his current Husky contract (through 2021, thanks to an extension he signed late last year), so he has time to sort it out.

STEWART

Malcolm Stewart had reason to ride cautiously in Arizona. It was at State Farm Stadium last year that he suffered a season-ending broken femur, so the SmarTop/Bullfrog Spas/MotoConcepts/Honda rider just wanted to leave the venue in one piece. That slam in the whoops during Race Two probably didn’t feel great, but sometimes riders need to have a crash and get up without injury in order to get over their fears. The fourth-fastest qualifying lap, a fourth-place result in Race One, and a sixth-place result in Race Three were the highlights of Stewart’s weekend and he finished ranked seventh overall on the day, his fourth consecutive top-10 result of the season. Currently eighth in the championship, this has been a good start to the season for Stewart and it’s apparent that his priority is to make it through every round without serious issue, with an emphasis on results later on.

CIANCIAURLO

Glendale was Adam Cianciarulo’s first really rough day in the 450 class. The Monster Energy Kawasaki rider was the fastest rider in the qualifying practices for the fourth week in a row (eight out of nine times, if you’re counting at home) and was only matched by teammate Eli Tomac, as the two posted laps in the 1:01 range. The night show started off well, with 3-6 scores in the first two races, but his body slam in the whoops necessitated a trip to the medical unit for a further checkup. All is good in AC’s world, just sore from the hit, and he’ll be back for Oakland. Like Stewart, this season is about learning what it takes to be at the races week in and week out, and what results come along the way is a nice bonus, but hits like that are not wanted. Like we’ve said for many riders above, we’re excited to see how AC fares on the rutted East Coast tracks, like say Indianapolis or Atlanta, and his Daytona race could be a sign of things to come outdoors.

ASSORTED PROPS & THINGS WE NOTICED

Michael Lieb for his 6D Helmets sponsorship package, with a limited edition set of gear you can get through CANVAS MX.

Blake Baggett worked hard at Glendale. The Rocky Mountain ATV-MC/WPS/KTM rider had a crash in Race One and got back to 12th, finished fourth in Race Two, and 14th in Race Three. A forgettable night, yes, but he showed speed through the day that many in the pit area took notice of.

Anyone else notice that both the 250 and 450 classes have only had 27 riders per group score championship points?

Here’s to our Oklahomies Bogle and Bloss after their headshots on the Arizona dirt. Heal up boys, no need to rush back.

Chris Blose’s crash put a damper on our weekend. At home in Arizona, the FXR/Chaparral/Honda rider is on the sidelines for a while due to a long list of injuries from his Race Three tumble in the whoops and it sounds like he’ll miss the 250 East Coast region. Blose has been riding great lately and would have made things interesting on the small-bore bike. He is the Australian SX2 champ, after all. Blose’s gear from the weekend was a one-off set by FXR that had hints of Arizona for the hometown favorite and it’s up for auction to benefit St. Jude.

Arizona is one of our favorite SX races of the year. Close enough that it’s easy to get to, far enough away that it feels like a vacation, we enjoyed our two days at the track with friends in the industry. Phoenix has always been well attended by fans and industry friends, so it was good to catch up with so many people during the afternoon pit walks and feast on acai bowls.