The past weekend marked the beginning of the 2022 Fox Australian Supercross championship in conjunction with the final round of World Supercross Championship at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne. It was a massive task building a Supercross track inside a football stadium in the middle of a city, so let's take a look at some things you wouldn't usually see; from building the track, to the bikes in the pits.
- Starting on Wednesday prior to the event we attended a launch event at Urban Surf for the Australian GP, showcased by Ken Roczen surfing with Red bull athlete Julian Wilson.
- Wednesday afternoon was chaos in the loading dock outside Marvel Stadium. A strict deadline on when construction could start meant a convoy of machinery on standby.
Tough boxes?! - One of the major talking points after round 1 in Cardiff was the tough boxes lining the track, and there was no short supply of these on hand in Melbourne. SX Global chose this route as flat boxes are easy to transport around the world.
- Dirt! - building a SX track in a football stadium requires a lot of it. 8,000 Tonne of dirt was used to build the racetrack. 80 body trucks on circuit for 24 hours is one way to get it done. Amazing effort by local Melbourne company Starbuck Excavation.
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- There was no shortage of string lines and paint markings during the construction of the track either, with Dream Traxx using the string line to make sure the rhythms were dead straight. In addition, they also measured out the lanes and place markings on the obstacles; in this case, a table landing on a step on step off!
- FMX ramps?! - One of the biggest talking points coming into these events was the addition of the metal finish line ramp! This ramp is made up of 5x FMX comp spec ramps bolted together with plywood on the backing... creates a cool spectacle but is scary when having to roll!
- The build of the track in Marvel Stadium is simply described as a " Logistical Nightmare" due to the carpark being directly below the floor. The weight limit on the stadium floor affects the amount of dirt that can be imported and primarily determines what machinery can be used in certain areas. A lot of the track was constructed with positrack machines, though they were allowed to use a D3k2 Dozer in certain areas (you could feel the floor shake around this machine). Due to the additional weight on the stadium floor, SX Global were forced to reinforce the carpark underneath.
-ALL SYSTEMS GO! - 4pm Wednesday afternoon, SX Global management was officially given the green light to begin the build of the track... why so late? In the agreements with Marvel Stadium, they could only have the football field (amazing grass) covered for 4 days. The longer they waited on the first day meant the longer they can go into Sunday for the load out. This leaves less than 48 hours to have the complete build finished and ready for bikes on track Friday lunchtime. From the track, to structures, start gates, giant podium, and all the electrical to go with it, crews worked for 24 hours straight!
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- How do they ship these bikes all around the world? - These custom-built transport cases are designed to hold 2 motorcycles - including parts/toolboxes/ wheels etc.
- For both rounds of WSX, we saw long-term mechanic Jordon Troxell alongside Ken Roczen. Jordon, an employee of HRC USA (mechanic of Colt Nichols), was granted permission to do these races with Ken as a sendoff for him. After we spoke with Jordon, he confirmed he will remain at HRC next year and not with Ken Roczen.
- Thursday afternoon was very similar across all WSX teams. Most mechanics spent the afternoon building, washing, and making changes to the setups of the bikes. From the state of some of these bikes showing up, Cardiff must have been a really quick pack-up.
- Much of the negatives surrounding the first round in Cardiff was the quality of the live onboard cameras used on the bikes. For round 2, they swapped positions of the camera to higher on the fork tube, with custom-built brackets. While there were some improvements in the quality from Cardiff, it was still a little off!
- In the WSX paddock Saturday morning, the wildcard area contained the #45 GasGas machine of Hayden Mellross. Hayden was announced at 10pm the night before as areplacement filll-in for the injured Brett Metcalf (as he broke his collarbone on the Friday night). It would appear the factory GasGas team had WSX-style graphics on hand just in case... pays to be prepared!
- Crtwotwo mechanic Ben Schiermeyer was on hand in Melbourne with the MDK team on the tools for Justin Bogle. WSX use controlled fuel for all teams, and bikes have to be in the " Fuel Zone" to be refueled. If you like the smell of race fuel, this is the spot for you!
- Joey Savatgy's Rick Ware Racing bike was a full build from Mitch Payton at Pro circuit. There is something about Joey on a PC bike that just works... Joeys dad was also on the tools for him all weekend. Great to see him get a win with his dad!
- Speaking of Joey, he was a massive hit with the fans in Melbourne. As the podium celebrations went off you could hear the crowd chanting his name. He spent a lot of his time after the event signing anything and everything for fans in the stands. This was a cool night for him.
- Vince Friese was spotted on the track early Thursday afternoon (no caution lights to be found?). He did a couple of starts and seemed to be playing with the mapping of the bike. Most of these teams have not used this race fuel before and this caused issues in Cardiff.
- Attention to detail on these Bud Racing Kawasaki's is impressive.
- Chad Reed spent all weekend doing laps of the stadium. There were lots of media duties for Chad this weekend, almost seemed like he was thrown into many of the tv pieces that were produced. Always great to see Chad and the family, which even now has a full-time vlogger!
- Some lucky people are going to score themselves a Fly Racing helmet signed by all the Honda Genuine riders.
- The only part of the track that was completely rebuilt after Friday night's Australian Supercross was the whoops. Jason Baker re-cut the whoop pad in about half an hour - very impressive! The only difference to the track after the re-build was that they decided to remove 2 whoops completely.
- WSX had their branding out as much as possible, even down to the camera covers...
- Shane McElrath was more than happy about heading home with some hardware... those things are huge!
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