RJ versus Seth versus Tom. It has everyone talking. Here's a transcript from the weekly Fly Racing Racer X Race Review Podcast with Steve Matthes, Jason Weigandt, and Jason Thomas.
Matthes: Well, I don't know where to start. Like, the thing [Hampshire and Hammaker crash] doesn't happen without Beaumer slowing down and doing that. But then the thing was, when you look at the heat race crash of RJ, and then you look at the what he pulled, I mean, we got the full RJ experience. He tried to he tried to apologize to Mitch Payton after the race. He apologized on social media. Payton I heard was not having it at back at the truck from RJ. I interviewed Mitch [Payton]. Not stoked. I can't be a hypocrite and say that that pass was fine because it was for a title and all of that because, as I said on this show, many times, if you attempt a pass and you go down, it's not there. The pass wasn't there. So, Weege, I'll let you kick it off. Like, I don't know where you want to start, but I think poor sportsmanship on Beaumer. I didn't like that and RJ, RJ was not doing that for KTM. He was doing that for RJ. So I want to get that out there. It was not a team order help Vialle win because the KTM group, that was just RJ. I didn't like that move either. Yeah. Seth Hammaker should be champion.
Weigandt: I'll get to my thoughts in a second. Except I do totally agree with feeling horrible for Hammaker because he did everything right. They kept stacking more obstacles in front of him. We were waiting for him to crack under the pressure. He was the guy that didn't have this championship experience. Dude. He delivered completely! He got starts. He dominated the heat. He started getting dropped early by Vialle, and then at that point you think he's going to panic and then tighten up, but he put it back together! Then he has this sneak attack that I'm sure he was not anticipating from Beaumer. And then he managed that. And then he managed to handle Beaumer without ruining his own race. He did everything right and he still was not rewarded for it. That feels bad. As for the RJ thing, I want to laugh like it's just RJ going RJ to such an unbelievable degree, but JT has a take I had not thought of. Please explain this, JT.
Thomas: Well, the take is that the pass wasn't enough. I think he [Hampshire] could have made that pass without them both going down. So, when you say it's not there, I tend to disagree. I think he knew he had to knock him down. If RJ passes Seth and goes on and gets second, he still loses the championship. Like, cool. You got a podium, but you didn't really accomplish what your goal was. The only way he wins that title is if he knocks Seth down. That's it! If he just passes him, he doesn't gain enough points because he's not going to catch Deegan, and Beaumer and Tom were not going to pass Seth. Seth had already exited the building from them, so the only move was to knock him down. You're not trying to hurt him. It's a slow corner, but you need him to crash so somebody else passes him. Doesn't matter who. Somebody else has to get in between you and him for the math to work. So I think he understood the situation. You could say it's unsportsmanlike. You can say it's not the right thing. That's all fine. I'm not arguing any of those points. I'm just talking about for the math to work in that situation, he needed Seth to fall over. It's really that simple.
Weigandt: Here's what I wanted the legacy and the legend of this race to be: We knew RJ would go RJ in a must situation, and he did that, and he exploded all over the racetrack and took prisoners down with him and shrapnel everywhere. But it actually sounds to me that there was actually some thought to it. There was a plan. It wasn't just RJ twisting it too much.
Matthes: He said on social. He feels bad for a decision he had to make, right? So. Right, yeah. He's like, I had to do that. But no man, no, no, man. You knocked yourself down, you knocked yourself down!
Weigandt: Well, knowing what JT said. I think RJ's calculus was, can I manage to do this in a way that I don't fall and he [Hammaker] does? As I always say, quarterbacks don't plan on throwing interceptions. They just get the throw wrong by an inch. It's really hard to get that desperate of a move absolutely perfectly right. He got it wrong. But I understand now the intent of what he was trying to do. It looked completely brainless. But now that I understand the points situation, I understand the plan. As for the morals of if that's right or wrong, that's not for me to decide, I'm not the morals police. Everyone already has an opinion on that, one way or another. Obviously, the execution was not perfect, but that is a very hard thing to execute perfectly.
Matthes: Yeah, that's why you don't do it! That's why you don't do it!
Weigandt: What was he supposed to do, Steve?
Matthes: Well, we can start with the heat. You're not supposed to crash all by yourself and almost kill yourself in the heat. So, we can start there. You get a bad gate pick. He rode phenomenal. But, like, dude, you blew it with the heat race crash that gave you the bad gate pick.
Thomas: It doesn't matter. The heat doesn't matter in this scenario.
Matthes: It does because he could have just taken off with the win if he had the good gate pick!
Thomas: No, no. I don't think he was going to beat Deegan.
Matthes: If he gets a better gate pick, who knows? He was riding great!
Thomas: But you're you're you're putting ifs and buts into this. This is in the moment in this situation. What do you think he's supposed to do?
Matthes: Well, if you want to really knock him down, don't come in like he did. Simply T-bone the dude. Hit the guy's front tire coming out of a turn. That will that will keep you up, most likely and it will knock the shit out of Seth. But if you're really trying to knock a guy down down to win a title, again, I go back to the Tomac thing in 2017. If he does that, if he absolutely T-boned Seth off the track and wins the title, do you think the AMA just shrugs and hands him the #1 plate?
Thomas: They're not going to. So, that's the thing. You can't go in and just blast Seth into the upper deck of the stadium because the AMA is going to penalize you and it's not going to matter. They're going to penalize RJ. So, he has to make it somewhat of a racing maneuver. And you're walking this tightrope of, I can't blast him because I can't get penalized, I have to hope he just tips over. And he got it wrong. The track is super slippery. He got into the soft stuff and fell over. If you told me I had to knock you down for 600K, put body armor on, man. Like I'm just telling you, prepare yourself. Like there's no way that I'm not going in and getting aggressive with someone for 5 or 600 grand.
Matthes: Yeah, I just I don't like it. Okay, cool. Yeah, well, it didn't work and it wasn't going to work.
Thomas: Do you know how close that was to working? It was really close.
Weigandt: Yeah. If Hammaker's bike isn't on top of his and RJ gets up before him, he's gone. He's got it because both Beamer and Vialle will probably pass Seth, and RJ's got everybody right where he wants him.
Matthes: But Seth was getting up right behind him!
Weigandt: Ten feet before the corner, when you're setting up this maneuver, you don't know the the direction they're going to fall. As he's setting it up, he's like, "I got a shot here that we might both go down and maybe I'll get up before him." It almost worked! Again, I'm not the morals police. Not sure if that's right or wrong. But I understand what he was trying to do.
Matthes: What's the difficulty of this? What you guys are saying? What's the difficulty of actually pulling this off? Two percent?
Weigandt: What are the chances that he wins the title if he doesn't knock Hammaker down? That's zero percent.
Thomas: Steve, you've never seen somebody knock somebody down without crashing themselves? I can show you every single weekend. Every. Single. Weekend. It happens every weekend.
Matthes: But now we're also hoping that he doesn't get up right away. Now we have to knock Seth down so that he's out long enough that the KTM guys can get him. So now we're trying to do three things here. We're trying to do one guy. Yeah. And we're again, we're trying to do three things perfectly here to win a championship.
Thomas: Steve, it's not three things. I just need to get this guy to tip over and me not fall and that's it.
Matthes: No, no, no, no!
Thomas: No?
Matthes: No, no! He has to also not get up right away!
Thomas: He's not going to get up in time! Beaumer is going to pass him.
Matthes: Vialle was so far back.
Thomas: But Beaumer was not!
Matthes: They got caught in bikes. They got caught everything!
Thomas: Beaumer was not far back!
Matthes: I just don't like it. I know what you guys are saying. I understand what you're saying. But I don't like it. I don't think that's the way to win a championship. I don't think that that's going to work. And it didn't work. And I'll stand by that.
Thomas: Listen, we're not the moral police, though. You can't take your moral approach to it and then attack it logically.
Matthes: Yeah. Logically, this wasn't going to work!
Weigandt: If this has even an 8 percent chance of working, you're giving yourself better odds of winning the title than the zero percent chance of winning it if you just pass him.
Matthes: Chase Sexton could have done that exact thing this weekend. He could have taken the 450 Supercross title by knocking Cooper Webb down. And he chose not to.
Thomas: A week ago he teed him up.
Matthes: Not really. But yeah, I mean, he did.
Weigandt: I don't have an opinion on that. Right or wrong to do that? That's for everybody else to decide.
Matthes: That's cool. You don't have an opinion I do. And Chase Sexton didn't do didn't do what RJ did.
Matthes: I'll take the Chase Sexton route and just sort of look back and be like, "God damn I crashed in the heat. Bad gate pick. I put myself in this spot. It sucks. I also threw away Pittsburgh. I threw away with two laps to go I crashed and [Max] Vohland got me like it's just the way I want to win a a title." He's already got one. And yeah, I'll take the Sexton route. You guys take the RJ route, and we'll have a road warrior out there for you, too.
Thomas: We're not going to say he hit him at at Denver at all. We're just going to leave that out of it.
Matthes: Well, yeah. No, he hit him. I mean, he it wasn't, you know, he hit him.
Thomas: He hit him a lot harder than than RJ hit Seth like they both crashed, but contact for contact.
Matthes: We can put some G-force ratings on the bikes, I don't know. So Tom wins. He was not the best guy. Yeah. Two titles in a row.
Matthes: At one point when Tom was ahead of those guys, I'm like, he's got it.
Weigandt: At first he pulled away!
Matthes: He pulled away! I'm like, he's got this. Like he's not going to make a mistake. Like you said, credit to Seth for digging deep and catching him. And Tom's whoops in practice were horrific, but he figured them out.
Thomas: I think that Tom continuing to blitz the whoops cost him that. He should have got gone to jumping. He was getting eaten alive trying to blitz late. And I know he was like, "I have to blitz. The only way I'm going to win is blitz. I got to go for it." And we've seen how many times it hasn't worked for him. But I think like if you watch J-Coop, like how good they were getting through there, his blitzing fell off and Seth was just crushing him there. I think had he gone to jumping, he would have been much better off than he was.
Weigandt: Scholars will never be able to explain the two-year run of these two titles for Vialle. But as I've said a few times now, you can't get lucky twice.
Thomas: And he's also a two-time MXGP MX2 champ.
Weigandt: Right! You can't get lucky four times!
Thomas: But this was so on brand for his championship this year. He consistencied his way to a title in the last race. In the last race he didn't crash. He didn't make the big mistake. He didn't get the run in with RJ. He just was like, "I'm just gonna be here. And hopefully, hopefully good things are layed upon my feet."
[Note: Thomas also mentions how Vialle did save his season with a clutch must-win ride in Pittsburgh two weeks ago.]
Matthes: I was shocked at how fast RJ and Seth pulled away from him. I'm like, Tom, what happened? What happened? So, how much.
Weigandt: I feel like in these last race title scenarios? I feel like when it goes, when it starts to unravel, it really starts to really unravel because the guy's probably panicking. Arm pump, tightening up, just emotionally it's all crumbling. That's why I'm so impressed with Hammaker, because that should have happened to him, but recovered multiple times.
Matthes: I hope you both agree with me. Otherwise I'm going to stop this recording. RJ didn't do that to help Vialle, right?
Weigandt: No. He did it to help himself. He knocked down Hammaker to try to win the title for himself.
Matthes: How much do you guys put on Beaumer for this? His lap times slowed. You know he knew what was going on. I don't like that either. Shocking. Breaking news. I don't like that either. Like, dude, just ride the race, man.
Weigandt: Again I'm not the moral police, but I don't like that one as much. Because what RJ's doing, RJ's doing that to help himself. Seth and RJ are two guys fighting over something, RJ versus Seth, they both want the title. Juju is a third party inserting himself into it. That's a little different?
Thomas: Honestly, when I spoke to him before and on air, he was so adamant about wanting to win like he I didn't get any impression that he was going to be a team player, even cared. He was just like, "No, man, I'm I'm finally good again and I am so ready to win this race." And yeah, I mean, for me, I think Justin Cooper's involvement in the 450 championship is about as far as I think team tactics should be a role. Justin Cooper was like, "Okay, I'm not going to pass my guy [Cooper Webb] here." That's about as much as I think is like acceptable. But man, Juju absolutely played a role on multiple fronts of how this championship went because he got aggressive with Hammaker, which slowed him down. If that doesn't happen, RJ doesn't get to him. It changed everything.
Watch this interaction and more on the Fly Racing/Racer X Review Podcast below!
