Perception - WSX Cardiff

They came, they saw, they concurred? World Supercross Championship kicked off today in Cardiff, Wales and we finally got to see what the SX Global guys had in store for us. The highly anticipated round 1 had all the hype, as you would expect for the start of a new championship. Here is my Perception of the event and the races that were.

Firstly, the look and feel of the event. Unfortunately, I could not attend the first round in Wales, but it was an excellent opportunity to see how the Broadcast would look. The broadcast team was made up of some familiar faces in the booth with arguably the voice of AMA Supercross, Ralph Sheheen joined by Jeff Emig who both have spent a lot of time in the booth together. This made it relatively seamless between the 2, though it did seem they had more research to do with some of the riders in the field. Kristen Beat was trackside and we have seen her in the American series, she was back in her element bringing great trackside analysis. Personally, I wasn't a big fan of Joseph Allen and his pieces to camera were a little cringy and tough to watch.

The Track, to me the track provided entertaining racing but I'm still not sure if that was track related. Some criticism was I felt the bowl burms were small and flat, this was especially prevalent once the track got hard pack and the mistake by Tomac in final 1 showed how tricky they were. Also, the layout was a little basic which again plays a part in the close racing we saw. And the Tuff Boxes?? I'm not sure what was going on with boxes wrapped in sponsors but they were causing havoc, especially in the section before the mechanic's area. It was not all negative as I said the races were close and exciting and visually the dirt looked amazing on TV.

Now let's get to the racing and the WSX class was exactly what we expected Eli Tomac (as a Wildcard) winning all 3 races to take the overall. he didn't have it all his own way with the tight first turn he had to make some passes in all 3 finals, but in the end, never looked in danger of not winning at any time. Ken Roczen looked fast all weekend but had his issues in the finals that would land him second on the night with 3-2-4 results. Final 1 looked promising with Roczen leading from Tomac but lost the front after the finish and had to remount and that was about the closest we got to Tomac being seriously pressured. Then I feel the surprise of the night was Vince Friese finishing on the box in 3rd with 2-3-5 finishes. Vince played into his strengths with good starts on a track that paid dividends to starting up front and shorter races. In saying that though Vince looked really racey all night and held his own with the front group. rounding out the top 5 were Justin Brayton and Josh Hill respectively.

SX2, and this was a stacked class coming into the weekend, and in our preview, we had Mcelrath as the favorite and to a point, we were right as he took out the first-ever win in a world 250 supercross championship. Shane however never won a final as he went 4-3-5 over the finals but his consistency paid off and in his interview, Shane eluded to this and the fact he needs to work on some starts leading into Melbourne for the finale. Chris Blose on his return back to racing after calling time on his Professional career in the US finished 2nd in an emotional ride from the American and this emotion spilled out in his podium interview as Chris was fighting back the tears when speaking about being away from his young family. He would finish with 2-4-8 over the 3 finals. Mitchell Oldenburg would round out the podium with 1-19-1 scores. Oldenburg was definitely the fastest rider on the night but what you could only call a brain snap in the 2nd final causing him to crash out after hitting the triple in the middle of the pack and landing on Derek Kelley. To salvage a 3rd overall and only being 2 points out of the championship lead Oldenburg would have to be taking the positives into Melbourne. rounding out the top 5 would be Carson Brown and Aaron Tanti respectively.

In summary, it was an action-packed start to what has been a highly anticipated start to a true World Supercross Championship. Though in the 2 weeks from now until Melbourne, there are going to be some teams who will be scrambling to find replacement riders as we lost a handful of stars and more with some sore bodies that will have to fight to get back to health. It is going to be an interesting couple of weeks to come. I can't wait to see how it looks in person in Melbourne and what changes may be made.

Supercross on the world stage is here and I hope to stay.