CHIZ (Matthes)

So, our first-ever Yamaha LCQ Challenge race winner was Kyle Chisholm, and he's always harassed me to get back into the race even though he's no longer a privateer because Chiz loves money. And it's always been a hard no from me. Well, with Jerry Robin getting hurt, some of Jerry's fellow competitors came up with the idea of Chiz finally getting back into the race, but in this case, he's racing for Robin and giving all his money to Jerry. Thanks to Chiz for doing this, as well as Dustin Pipes, Chiz's team owner at HEP. So, we're letting Chiz in because he's doing a really cool thing, so look for the #11 out there unless...

Chisholm Continued (Mitch Kendra)

Pretty cool opportunity last night for Chisholm and Broc Glover to talk about supercross in front of some NFL fans during an NFL Draft Party last night, hosted by Steelers' Christian Kuntz.

PULPMX GIVES BACK (Matthes)

That leads us to the next thing... and that's a new project for us here at PulpMX. I've always been impressed by how much money our listeners have pledged toward the Yamaha LCQ Privateer Challenge race (happening next week in Denver, BTW!) and I think there are ways to get more money into the hands of injured riders than we currently have in the sport. So, we started a new 501C Non-Profit called PulpMX Gives Back.

Super happy to continue to help injured riders, and our first campaign was going to be, with the help of Yamaha, a brand new YZ450F draw! The BLU CRU guys continue to do nothing but be so cool to the industry, right? So, we were all set, and then Jerry Robin got hurt pretty seriously.

Quick pivot on our end, and the first campaign is trying to get $7,700 raised by next Friday, and then Chiz will run the #77 on his HEP Suzuki to honor Jerry! We started yesterday AM, and we have a week. Let's get going for Jerry, and to see Chiz with the 77! Stay tuned for other campaigns on Pulpmxgivesback.com as we go along, and thanks for checking it out!

Pro Motocross Testing (Cudby)

Our Simon Cudby took a trip out to Fox Raceway at Pala this week to film with Jorge Prado. Prado has only recently started riding again after recovering from shoulder surgery early in the supercross season.

Also on track getting some time outdoors were Levi Kitchen, Julien Beaumer, Ty Masterpool, Ryder DiFrancesco, and off-road star Dante Oliveira.

And more bad news just came out of the East Rutherford race as GasGas has announced that Justin Barcia will be sitting out the last three SX rounds due to a knee injury he suffered in that brutal crash at the end of the whoops while in a podium position. This will unfortunately end Justin's string of years with at least one 450SX podium, which goes back to 2017. He does plan on being ready for the AMA Pro Motocross Championship opener at Fox Raceway next month.

Fastest Man on the Hopewell High School Honor Roll (DC)

Brian “JR” Saunier is a privateer riding out of the McGinley Clinic privateer rig. He is also a graduate of Hopewell High School, which is located near the Pittsburgh Airport. Feld Entertainment’s Sean Brennen and Joe Weber came up with a cool idea, which was to bring Saunier and his motorcycle back to his old high school. The school was all-in, and they decided to have a Thursday morning assembly in front of the whole student body, all 689 kids, as well as the faculty. The McGinley Clinic privateer team sent their rig and all of the riders that were in town to the school, setting up in the parking lot with all of the bikes on display. Haley Shanley was the hostess, and the theme was the importance of graduating, no matter what your career path, just as JR did. JR also encouraged the students to follow their passion. A couple of local news stations came out to cover the morning, and Broc Glover (who brought the trophy he won at the ’83 Pittsburgh SX) and I were invited to talk about career paths and a solid education. Needless to say, JR was blown away by it all. I asked him if he could have ever imagined when he was a student that one day Hopewell High would have a supercross assembly, and he just laughed and said, 'No way!' It was a cool event, and I appreciated the invite, and thanks to Mitch Kendra for coming along and filming it all, and Jim Perry for his behind-the-scenes help… Oh, and Jared Lesher for letting the kids twist the throttle on the screaming #412 YZ250!

The First Pittsburgh SX (DC)

With supercross finally back in town for the first time in 42 years, I dug into some of the Racer X Archives to tell the story of the earlier Pittsburgh SX races in 1978 and ’83, both of which my parents were co-promoters—their two and only forays into supercross. The ’78 race, in particular, was memorable, not just for a thrilling Bob Hannah win over Marty Tripes, but for all of the stuff that went on before and after the event. I wrote the following story about the “Joy in Mudville” and also some of the newspaper coverage of what turned out to be a muddy mess.

And here is a newspaper clipping I found of one of the primary characters in the ’78 fiasco, Dirt DiNardo!

How Different Things Were... (DC)

For the most part, riders are cordial with one another, though there are the occasional run-ins on the track or near the podium, but it's mostly small stuff. At the same time, one will probably never see a couple of top rivals like, say, Cooper Webb and Chase Sexton go train together before a race, right? Maybe they might both participate in a season-ending golf tournament or something, but surely, they would never go running together...

But that's exactly what happened before the first-ever Pittsburgh Supercross back in 1978, when a foot race was held at a local high school for all of the visiting riders and their mechanics as a fun way to train while on the road. Jim "Greek" Gianatsis was there to cover the two-mile race around a 1/2-mile course and posted this on Facebook:

"During the 1978 Supercross season races before the Pittsburgh SX, many of the riders and race teams got together for a day of fun and foot races at an old high school track outside Pittsburgh. Organized by Supercross promoter CE Altman (PACE Motorsports), with Larry Huffman serving as trackside announcer, the Pro rider class included Bob Hannah, Rick Burgett, Rex Staten, Frank Stacy, Chuck Sun, John Ayers, Marty Moates, Terry Clark, John Savitski, and more."

Yeah, this is definitely not happening today!

MXGP of Switzerland (DC)

Over in Europe, there was a big shakeup in the MXGP at the Grand Prix of Switzerland in Frauenfeld. Honda HRC's Tim Gajser appeared to be well on his way to defending his championship title when he went down hard in the second moto and dislocated his shoulder, causing a DNF. 

"I am very frustrated with how it turned out and cannot help but feel it could have been avoided," posted Gajser afterward. "After initially being treated trackside, I was forced to wait 30 minutes with unknown injuries and in a lot of pain! After finally making it to the medical center, X-rays were clear, but my shoulder was dislocated the whole time. I hope this incident is the last of its kind, as our sport is dangerous enough without additional hazards so close to the track... Time to head home for more checkups and to start the recovery ahead of the remainder of the season."

Gajser was nearly a full race ahead in the point standings, but that was cut in half after the second moto. Kawasaki's Romain Febvre is now just 27 points behind. He finished second overall to the very impressive Lucas Coenen, who swept both motos on his KTM to become the youngest MXGP winner since the class was introduced in 2003. The Belgian is ranked third now in the standings, but he's 51 points down on Febvre.

Also of note in the MXGP class was the third-place overall finish of Switzerland's own Jeremy Seewer, who gave Ducati their first MXGP podium on the Desmo450 MX.

The MX2 division also had a 1-1 winner on a KTM in Germany's Simon Langenfelder, with Husqvarna's Liam Everts second with 3-3 finishes. The points are much closer in the 250 class, as Kay de Wolf still holds the red plates, but Langenfelder is now just three points down (281 to 278). The series resumes on May 4 in Portugal.

High Point Gets Hit (DC)

More bad news, but of a different sort. Southwestern Pennsylvania got hammered by a windstorm last Saturday evening around 8 p.m. Hit hard was High Point Raceway. The announcers' tower was destroyed, collapsing down to a pile of rubble. Fortunately, no one was around. Racer Productions received plenty of calls from the local moto community, which is greatly appreciated. Work has already begun on building out a new tower at “the country club of motocross,” so look for it at the High Point National in June.

129th Annual Boston Motothon (DC)

The most famous foot race in the world, the Boston Marathon, went off on Monday (not Saturday, as I errantly mentioned in Racerhead last week) with a few moto touch points. Former pro and now the co-promoter of the Spring Creek National, Alex Martin, ran it for the first time and had an impressive performance:

Jason Fowler, the brother of SX statistician and Race Day Live regular Clinton Fowler, is an accomplished marathoner and all-around badass. The two-time Ironman World Champion was competing in the Boston Marathon for the 21st time and posted a 19th place finish in the wheelchair division with a time of 2:00:43. Fowler has now participated in over 150 road races, including 51 total marathons and 54 triathlons.

And Siena Ward, the daughter of AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Jeff Ward, finished her first Boston Marathon with a time of 3:21:15, which gave her 9,812th overall in a field of 28,795. She was 2,048th place among the 12,441 females. Well done!

Win Ads of the Week (DC)

Here's a quick glimpse at the Cycle News cover this week as well as the win ads from East Rutherford, featuring the winners, of course, Chase Sexton and Seth Hammaker.

Bridges (Burgess)

From Charlie “Diffy Smooth” Burgess: Saw you were digging the bridges out there, got these on the way back from the TP199 Challenge at Pleasure Valley in 2019.  There just so happened to be an event where they had the bridge shut down to vehicle traffic so I took full advantage of it.

Hey, Watch It!

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Weege was back near his home stomping grounds for the East Rutherford SX, working both Race Day Live as well as the "details" reporter from the pits (his explanation of how to stiffen or soften suspension was Emmy-worthy). Here's Weege Show, and we will try to get that suspension clip from Doug Cabrera at Feld:

Corner like a (retired) PRO... One SIMPLE Hack