#supercross

Triumph is going off-road racing, confirming development of a line of competition motocross and enduro models. The British brand says it will start a factory race program, committing to top-tier racing in both disciplines.

Before we got married, I took my wife to the stock car races at El Cajon Speedway, east of San Diego. It was kind of a test. I wanted to be sure she could handle my Southern, inbred hick-ness before signing on. This was back in the 1980s when there were still a lot of Chevelle-bodied cars running on America’s dirt ovals. In fact, it seemed like just about all the cars were Chevy Chevelles that night.

Kawasaki has been spotted testing a new KX450F race bike in Japan, suggesting big changes are on the way for 2019. The updates include new bodywork, electric start and, most notably, a brand new engine.

Amongst a slew of other racing series that kicked off this past weekend was Monster Energy AMA Supercross, and the display of racing provided that night did not disappoint. Anaheim 1, the famed opening round, is always suspenseful as riders often change teams/brands in the off-season, return to settle the scores of years past, reignite old rivalries and spark new ones all the same.

The 2018 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship is upon us. In two days, the gates will drop in Anaheim and racers aboard 250cc and 450cc bikes will compete bar-to-bar in an effort to edge each other out for a place on the top step of the podium. With no shortage of drama last year in both the Supercross and Outdoor National series, racing in 2018 should be as competitive as ever across both classes.

We’ve all seen ‘Field of Dreams’ where Kevin Costner builds a baseball field into a cornfield, and while that was pretty neat, I think we can all agree building a motocross track into a cornfield is waaay cooler.

When you’re an amateur racer, you fight for everything. You fight to be able to afford to make it to the next round, you fight to get your name in front of factory sponsors and you fight just to make it to the main event. Tyler Enticknap is an amateur Supercross racer who was poised to make the first main event of his career when he got tangled up with Devin Raper at the East Rutherford New Jersey round of the Monster Energy Supercross.

We realize this can be a tense subject considering the widespread popularity of James “Bubba” Stewart but the fact of the matter is, James has had a challenging few years and has been, thus far, absent in 2017.  Do you think Stewart’s racing days are over or will he make a return to motorcycle racing?

The interwebs have been abuzz since Ryan Dungey announced his retirement last week. Many have been congratulating him on a successful career, while others think he quit too soon. We’re curious if our readers think Dungey made the right decision in retiring or if you think he should have kept racing for a few more seasons.

While it didn’t really take anyone by surprise, the motorcycle industry has been abuzz in the last 24 hours following Ryan Dungey‘s retirement announcement. Monster Energy Supercross released this video highlighting Dungey’s accomplished career in the series.

Okay, I admit I’m pretty out of touch when it comes to Supercross. I enjoy watching sports that I slightly know how to participate in (even if it was decades ago), but I just haven’t ever been able to relate to that much flying through the air. I love riding dirt bikes when I get the occasional chance, but stadium Supercross has about as much to do with how I ride a dirt bike as a Saturday morning softball game has to do with the World Series; they’re almost not even recognizably similar activities. They’re really even further apart than that. I wouldn’t be afraid to stand at the plate and listen to a 100-mph fastball sizzle past me (doubt I’d be able to see it), but I’d be terrified to hit a triple wide open on a modern 450. Or a modern 250. Or a modern PW50.

The third round of the 2017 AMA Supercross series gets underway this weekend, as the riders and teams make their way back to Anaheim, California – site of the season-opening round of the series – for what’s better known as Anaheim 2. As we await the best Supercross riders in the world to line up this weekend, let’s go back and revisit the Geneva round of the 2016 European SX series.

Strange how some people who call themselves motorcyclists like some forms of racing and not others. When I was a kid dreaming of my first motorcycle, it was a KX125 or a Hodaka Combat Wombat or something like that, and my heroes were the exotic characters in the magazines who raced them. This was before pavement racing had been invented I think. Now, I have to admit that while I think outdoor MX is pretty entertaining, given my choice between attending a Supercross or roller derby, I’d probably go with the skaters.

If you read my piece about getting Behind the Scenes at KTM, you might recall how the Austrian manufacturer has really exploded in recent years. So much so that it’s goal is to capture the on-road market like it has the off-road scene. Well, by 2001, KTM was well established in the off-road world, and Mark Kariya’s piece about the 2001 KTM Roll Out highlights everything from the 125SX at the bottom of the range, up to the 520 SX at the top. As impressive as KTM’s lineup was, it would be another 14 years until Team Orange would capture it’s most elusive prize, the 2015 AMA Supercross championship – the crowning jewel on the company trophy shelf. 

For this week’s Church feature, we’re continuing the Suzuki two-stroke dirtbike theme. Last week we featured the 2001 Suzuki RM250. This week, it’s Mark Kariya’s review of the 250’s little brother, the 2001 Suzuki RM125. Incorporating many of the improvements seen on the RM250, here, Kariya tries his best to impersonate Travis Pastrana. In case you’re of the generation who only knows Pastrana for his backflips and four-wheel rally exploits, Travis also has a 125cc championship to his name as well. And he did it aboard a Suzuki RM125. Read on to see Kariya’s impressions of the bike.