MOTOCROSS ACTION PHOTO OF THE DAY: THE LAST TIME WAS BACKWARDS
With news that Glen Helen is back on the AMA National schedule for 2014, we decided to take a look at the last Glen Helen National track from 2009. It ran backwards, but since the Glen Helen track changes every year and changed directions many times over the years, no one could actually say what backwards really is. Jody says that he will run it forwards on May 24, 2014, but he didn‘t say what that meant.
Back in 2009 the Talladega first turn wasn’t a 180-degree banked turn. It was a 90-degree bank that immediately went up “Carmichael Falls.”
After the start the course came down Shoei Hill and made a tight right-hand turn to go past the mechanics area, which was tucked in just below Talladega and then went back towards the grandstands.
Five years ago, the Mt. Saint Helen downhill was used as an uphill. In 2014, it will be a downhill again.
This is the Triple Step-Up (left), which was a step-down in 2009. And that is the famous Monster Arch that AMA T-shirt concessaire John Ayers insisted be put on the landing ramp of the first step-down tabletop. Then, rather than remove the arch when riders came close to hitting it, the AMA left the arch up and cut the jump down?so that the step-downs didn’t work. Ayers was also the leading proponent of the “smooth track concept” that ruined many tracks in 2009. Both of those ideas, the arch and grading tracks between motos, were stupid.
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