Coney Island Dog
Get the real lowdown at the latest MXGP round from the only American media outlet with someone on the ground at every 2023 FIM World Motocross Championship event….
Seewer brings the fans… again
Let’s be honest, the reason why we went to Switzerland is because of Jeremy Seewer. Without him, a country known for hating anything non-green would not be having anything to do with hosting a World Championship motocross event, but all credit to him and his countrymen, the fans came out in force. Unlike Argentina where the Argentinian football shirt-inspired design has won over the fans, he needs no such gimmicks in Switzerland and it is one of the best things about this traveling circus – the atmosphere when a home country really backs their home rider. Apparently, we’ve signed for three more years in Frauenfeld, so that gives him three more chances to do well, because he actually got beaten by fellow Swiss rider Valentin Guillod this weekend.
The paddock is now fitter
Anyone with the basic knowledge of Google Maps was aware that the track and the paddock were a looooong way away from each other. However, Google didn’t really inform that there was also a steep hill involved. Estimates ranged from one mile to two miles, depending on where you were in the paddock and where you needed to be at the track but it was a good 20-minute walk, uphill. And it sucked. It sucked the first time, and it sucked the 18th and final time. Plenty of people had e-bikes and Surron’s, and there was the occasion shuttle, but overall, you walked, and it was horrible.
Old-school motocross
To make the whole walking thing worse, the track was pretty crap for viewing purposes and not much of a spectacle to behold from anywhere. Many people compared it to a club track from the ’90s, which is what it literally was, and so the verdict wasn’t particularly great. Overall, it raced better than it looked and there was more passing than I think anyone predicted, but it was tight and narrow and without many decent jumps. As mentioned previously, we are going back there in the future so it’d be great if they could tweak it a bit and make it a bit bigger, but seeing as you need a decree from the King to get anything built in that country, we aren’t holding out much hope.
We got to celebrate Easter… yay
I’ll be honest, I don’t get Easter. How can we celebrate a day, that keeps changing every year? But religious discussion aside, having a day-off on Sunday is not something I ever want to do again. Sure, it was nice to have a BBQ and play a bit of football and just chill, but we can all do that at home, not in the most expensive country on the planet. The additional cost for everyone involved, from hotel rooms to three extra meals, for the one extra day of doing nothing would have been staggering and it was hard to really look at it as a positive thing. We also now have one day less before this weekend’s round in Trentino.
Qualifying points vs championship standings
The idea of the qualifying points was to make the Saturday qualification race meaningful and reward the fans with action from riders who were more motivated as points are at stake. So far, three rounds in, and I wouldn’t say we’ve seen an increase in Saturday fans to witness this change. We have seen better Saturday racing, but is that short-term buzz worth the long-term affect that riders are able to score more points and thus extend championship leads further? It is obviously too early to tell, but if Prado (who has got to be loving this change) continues to go unbeaten on Saturday, and build out a bigger lead, has the experiment been a success? Only time will tell for all these questions, but you know there are people with their calculators out and seeing how this season would look with the old points system.
Main image: Infront
