Bruce Wayne and his… No. Wait, this is Superman and… Oops. Now we’ve got it. It’s the Three Musketeers.

(1) DECOSTER’S MASTERPIECE: Roger DeCoster’s genius, with the help of KTM’s cash (and willingness to invest in machinery), is paying massive dividends in the 2015 Supercross series. When Roger moved over to KTM he had a master plan that had three main ingrediants: (1) KTM had to build him a competitive bike…not competitive in Europe, but competitive in America. Without such a bike, Roger would never have been able to sign and/or keep the high-powered talent that it takes to win in the USA. KTM delivered Roger new bikes at the start of the Supercross season for the last four years, and there is little doubt that the latest KTM 250SXF and 450SXF are the best bikes the KTM team has ever had at their disposal. (2) Roger wanted carte blanche to hire the mechanics and team personnel he wanted, and to build a state-of-the-art race shop to rival anything the Big Four had. Roger got his wish. (3) Roger’s grand scheme also revolved around hiring Ryan Dungey, Ken Roczen and Marvin Musquin to carry the ball. And while Roczen and Musquin were works-in-progress for the first couple years, Ryan Dungey was an immediate success. Now in the fifth year of his reign, Roger is on the precipice of his crowning achievement as a team manager (and this from a man who built Honda’s powerhouse in the ’80s, orchestrated Team Suzuki’s comeback from obscurity in the ’00s and spent two years working at MXA and Dirt Bike between Honda and Suzuki). Dungey may have won his first titles at Suzuki (under the tutelage of Roger DeCoster), but of his 20 Supercross wins, 13 of them have been on a KTM (also under the tutelage of Roger DeCoster). If we were betting men, we’d wager that Roger is happiest for the success of Marvin Musquin — who had some tough breaks since moving to SoCal. The only melancholy note was that Ken Roczen didn’t stay around to fulfill the promise of Roger’s original SuperGroup.

KTM 450 SUPERCROSS WINS BY VENUE/YEAR/RIDER
1. Phoenix 2012…Ryan Dungey
2. Atlanta 2012…Ryan Dungey
3. Salt Lake City 2012…Ryan Dungey
4. Las Vegas 2012…Ryan Dungey
5. Anaheim III 2013…Ryan Dungey
6. Minneapolis 2013…Ryan Dungey
7. Anaheim 1 2014…Ken Roczen
8. Atlanta 2014…Ken Roczen
9. Indianapolis 2014…Ryan Dungey
10. Anaheim III 2015…Ryan Dungey
11. Dallas 2015…Ryan Dungey
12. Atlanta II 2015…Ryan Dungey
13. Daytona 2015…Ryan Dungey
14. Indianapolis 2015…Ryan Dungey
15. St. Louis 2015…Ryan Dungey

Do they watch Bullwinkle in France?

(2) THE MAGIC NUMBERS: With only four races left in the 450 Supercross season (Houston, New York, Santa Clara & Las Vegas), one race left in the 250 East (New York) and two races in the 250 West (Houston & Santa Clara), the magic numbers come into sharper focus. Going into St. Louis, Ryan Dungey only had to earn 50 points, in any of the remaining races, to lock the 450 title down. After St. Louis, Ryan only needs 20 points over the next four races. In the 250 East Marvin Musquin needs to stay within 5 points of Justin Bogle at New York to earn his first Championship in the USA. Meanwhile out West, Yamaha’s Cooper Webb is sitting on a 30-point lead and could win the 250 West regional title in Houston by finishing in front of Jessy Nelson and Tyler Bowers.

(3) THE WALKING WOUNDED: It is fairly typical for the Supercross season to begin to lose riders as it gets deep into its schedule. Martin Davalos had no chance of winning the 250 East after last week’s faux pas, so he pulled out to heal from his bout with forgotten 1990’s illness Epstein-Barr and to get ready for the start of the outdoor Nationals on May 16. No big surprise. Also missing from St. Louis were Justin Barcia (he could return after the break, but might wait for the Nationals), Trey Canard (out for 6 to 8 weeks), Jake Weimer (questionable), Wil Hahn (crashed at round one, but should be able to race the Nationals), Josh Hill (out of Supercross for 2015), Ken Roczen (he’ll be back at Houston), Mike Alessi (probably be back for Houston), Dean Wilson (out until 2016 with ACL/MCL tears), Adam Cianciarulo (will be back for the Nationals), Darryn Durham (plans to be back for Houston on April 11) and James Stewart (awaiting the outcome of his CAS appeal for FIM drug suspension).

(4) WONDER KIDS: It wasn’t a great night for the new batch of amateur transplants—who had looked so good just a week ago in Detroit. R. J. Hampshire crashed in practice, shook it off, got up and crashed again. But, this time he didn’t shake it off. He sat out the St. Louis round, but is still fifth in 250 East points — although now he is tied at 84 points with Anthony Rodriguez and Jimmy Decotis. Fifth is a big deal for all three riders and the spot will be resolved in New York on April 11. Jordan Smith, who has been as high as 4th (at Indy) finished 13th and now sits 18th in overall points. Colt Nichols was a surprising 6th last week in Detroit, but struggled to 16th in Saint Louie. He can crack the top ten in the standings in New York, but he needs to be very good there. The best of the bunch in St. Louis were Luke Renzland (7th) and Jace Owen (9th). Renzland has been consistently steady with 12-10-14-11-7 results for the five races he was in. Meanwhile, Jace Owen started out weak with 19-19-19 results in his first three 250 East races, but has been 10-10-9 in the second trio.

Cole Seely (14) and Chad Reed will fight it out over the next four races for third overall in 2015. They are 15 points apart.

(5) SPLIT DECISION: Every track builder makes gaffes, and designing split lanes is a very tricky thing. You have to make the two sections equal on time, but account for how the track will change as the night progresses. The only other split lane of 2015 was at Atlanta I. It was a disaster, as the only riders who took the left lane were riders looking to lose a place. Atlanta had split whoops. For St. Louis the track crew tried a split rhythm section. Initially it looked like another flop as riders single-filed it down the chosen side, and even though the fast side changed from the right to the left as the night progress. The saving grace of St. Louis’ split lane was Eli Tomac. With the fast guys sticking to the left side, Tomac discovered that if he quadded the triple into the corner before the split, he could carry enough speed to make the longer right side work. Thus, St. Louis’ split lane was a success.

Eli Tomac had to settle for second in St. Louis and probably for the Supercross series.

(6) MOVE OVER WARDY: With 6 wins in 2015, Ryan Dungey has moved up on the all-time Supercross win list into a tie for 8th place with Jeff Ward. Ryan won’t catch anyone else on the list in 2015, since there are only 4 races left this year and he is 7 wins behind Bob Hannah (27 wins). Ricky Johnson is 6th on the list with 28 wins, but  the top five can’t be caught by Dungey any time soon — without an incredible string of victories. Ryan would need 52 wins to catch leader Jeremy McGrath, 30 to equal James Stewart, 28 to match Ricky Carmichael and 24 to tie Chad Reed.

ALL-TIME SUPERCROSS WIN LIST
1. Jeremy McGrath…72
2. James Stewart…50
3. Ricky Carmichael…48
4. Chad Reed…44
5. Ryan Villopoto…42
6. Ricky Johnson…28
7. Bob Hannah…27
8. Jeff Ward…20
8. Ryan Dungey…20
10. Damon Bradshaw…19

Jordan Smith fought for what was rightfully his.

(7) GEICO SIG ALERT: You have to admire a team that doesn’t give its riders team orders or worries about a team dynamic where one team rider doesn’t care enough to help a teammate win a Championship. Either way, the Geico Honda riders looked a little foolish in the 250 main when Justin Bogle, coming from 12th on lap one, caught teammate Jordan Smith, running sixth on lap three. Smith didn’t want to give up a good position, so he fought his teammate tooth-and-nail for a whole lap and, when he finally got passed by Bogle, Smith overcooked it and hit the rear wheel of his fellow Geico teammate — a man who was on a desperate mission to salvage a good enough result that his and Geico’s title hopes would stay alive for New York. In the process, Smith’s love tap only slightly affected Bogle’s momentum. Justin Bogle didn’t fall, but Smith knocked himself down and took out Mitch Oldenburg and Justin Starling. Smith himself fell twice trying to picked his bike up in the banked corner. Bogle’s eventual 4th place finish in St. Louis means that Marvin Musquin will win the 2015 AMA 250 East Regional Championship if he finishes 16th or better in New York.

JORDAN’S SMITH NIGHT

 

 

 

ANDREW SHORT’S HOLESHOT & MORE

(8) ANDREW SHORT’S START: Much is made of Andrew Short’s third gear starting technique, but let’s not get too misty about it. First, Andrew Short gets works parts from KTM—that means he has a gearbox that could have whatever gear ratios he wants in it, his black box probably revs 1000 rpm more than any green, red, blue or yellow bike on the track, his Factory Service engine easily makes more than 60 horsepower and, because Supercross tracks are short and devoid of anything remotely resembling an outdoor tracks straights, he can run as large a rear sprocket as he wants. Thus, third gear is a choice that he can make. Ryan Dungey says that it is a choice he doesn’t want to make and still starts in second gear. You too could start in third gear on your trusty, but rusty, race bike, if you geared it down enough. All that said, Andrew Short is a great starter — when he was at Team Honda, he reeled off an impressive string of holeshots. Then, he went stone cold for a few years, but now he’s back. Unfortunately in St. Louis, he was on his back when his 450 Main holeshot turned into a massive endo on the way to turn two.

Justin Brayton is shaking off the ring rust and will be ready for the Supercross series to start…well, he’ll be ready for the AMA Nationals soon.

(9) THE GOOD: There are lots of riders who look good in losing causes — and conversely, riders who look bad while winning. Jimmy Decotis looked really sharp in St. Louis. He carried his speed and wasn’t afraid to tuck in behind his quarry. His sixth was good enough to move him into a three-way tie for fifth in 250 East points. Don’t look for Ryan Zimmer’s name in the results. Ryan hasn’t made a main event all year, but he was going to be in the “Big Show” in St. Louis. Sadly, Ryan crashed out of Heat One while on the verge of making the main and had to call it a night. Weston Peick was ragged, rough and raw all day in St. louis. He crashed a couple times in 450 qualifying, but when the gate dropped and the racing started he knew what to do. He finished second behind Ryan Dungey in his heat to go straight to the main, where fought with the front runners for a podium—and even though the top three steps keep slipping away from him — Weston ran as high as second and came home fifth. Because Weston missed four races with a broken bone in his foot, he’s not in the top ten in points (he’s 13th). He does have four top 5 finishes out of the 9 races he’s been in and you’d have to go all the way up to fifth place to find someone with as many top fives as Weston. It’s good to have Justin Brayton back on the track. We spend so much time worrying about riders who have to pull out of the series, but hardly notice when they come back. Welcome home Justin.

Jason Anderson finally showed us the stuff that impressed us at Anaheim 1. We knew he could do it.

(10) ON THE PODIUM: Where you finish in a race and what you’re happy with after the race depends on who you are. Ryan Dunegy may put on a happy face when he doesn’t make the podium, but he’s faking it. He expects to be in the top 3 every weekend and he normally is. Dungey finished off the podium at round one in Anaheim (fourth), but has scored 12 straight podiums (6 wins, 4 seconds and two thirds) since then. Here are the 450 podium finishers. There are 8 of them sharing 39 podium spots (13 x 3 = 39).

2015 PODIUMS
1. Ryan Dungey…12
2. Eli Tomac…7
3. Trey Canard…7
4. Ken Roczen…5
5. Cole Seely…3
6. Chad Reed…2
7. Jason Anderson…2
8. Blake Baggett…1

ST. LOUIS SUPERCROSS RESULTS: MARCH 28, 2015

 Eli Tomac (left), Ryan Dungey (center) and Jason Anderson (right) enjoy the spoils of war.

ST. LOUIS RESULTS: 450 CLASS
1. Ryan Dungey…KTM
2. Eli Tomac…Hon
3. Jason Anderson…Hus
4. Cole Seely…Hon
5. Weston Peick…Yam
6. Josh Grant…Kaw
7. Davi Millsaps…Kaw
8. Chad Reed…Kaw
9. Broc Tickle…Suz
10. Blake Baggett…Suz
Other notables: 11. Kyle Chisholm; 12. Nick Wey; 13. Phil Nicoletti; 18. Justin Brayton; 22. Andrew Short.

Marvin Musquin (25) has never been worse than second during the first seven rounds of the 250 East.

ST. LOUIS RESULTS: 250 EAST CLASS
1. Marvin Musquin…KTM
2. Jeremy Martin…Yam
3. Joey Savatgy…Kaw
4. Justin Bogle…Hon
5. Anthony Rodriquez…Yam
6. Jimmy Decotis…Hon
7. Colt Nicholls…Hon
8. Kyle Cunningham…Hon
9. Jace Owen…Hon
10. Kyle Peters…Hon
Other notables: 11. Dakota Alix; 13. Jordan Smith; 17. A.J. Cantazaro; 16. Colt Nichols; 18. Taylor Potter; 22. Justin Starling.

2015 AMA 450 SUPERCROSS POINTS STANDINGS
(After 13 of 17 races)
1. Ryan Dungey…296
2. Eli Tomac…216
3. Trey Canard…204
4. Cole Seely…198
5. Chad Reed…183
6. Jason Anderson…165
7. Blake Baggett…165
8. Ken Roczen…156
9. Broc Tickle…146
10. Andrew Short…137

2015 AMA 250 EAST SUPERCROSS POINTS STANDINGS
(After 7 of 8 races)
1. Marvin Musquin…169
2. Justin Bogle…149
3. Jeremy Martin…125
4. Joey Savatgy…113
5. R.J. Hampshire…84
6. Anthony Rodriquez…84
7. Jimmy Decotis…84
8. Kyle Peters…76
9. Martin Davalos…63
10. Kyle Cunningham…60

2015 AMA 250 WEST SUPERCROSS POINTS STANDINGS
(After 6 of 8 races)
1. Cooper Webb…136
2. Jessy  Nelson…106
3. Tyler Bowers…104
4. Zach Osborne…102
5. Shane McElrath…86
6. Aaron Plessinger…81
7. Justin Hill…79
8. Josh Hansen…79
9. Alex Martin…75
10. Malcolm Stewart…69

REMAINING SUPERCROSS RACES
April 4…………………Off weekend
April 11………………..Houston, TX
April 18………………..Santa Clara, CA
April 25………………..East Rutherford, NJ
May 2…………………..Las Vegas, NV

 

Photos by John Basher, KTM, Husqvarna, Geico Honda, Troy Lee Designs, Marvin Musquin, Honda