August 25-26 - Steel City AMA National - Delmont, PA
I received an email from Transworld asking me to attend the Steel City AMA Motocross race August 25th-26th. So I packed my bags, booked my flight and located a hotel room just three days before the event. I was happy to find a hotel just a few miles from the track which was great, but it was 1 hour away from the hotel. My first flight took off early Friday morning out of the fabulous Quad City International Airport to Minneapolis/St. Paul. I had a three hour lay-over to sit through and then boarded my flight to the Pittsburgh International Airport. I touched down at 4:20 P.M. and located my bags and grabbed my rental car. If I decided to drive to Steel City it would take me about 10 hours, but instead I decided to fly which took almost 11 hours. I picked up my car which was a left-over from the movie "The Fast and the Furious" which was a Chrysler Sebring. With all the hills in Western Pennsylvania this wasn't a very good choice. I think my Yamaha YZ450F has more horsepower! The drive from the airport to my hotel took over 1-1/2 hours which is twice as long as normal. Pittsburgh is known for three things; city of steel, city of bridges, and the Steelers NFL team. My suggestion is they need fewer bridges and more roads! Wow!
Pennsylvania is not any different than most of the states in the Midwest. Eight days of rain before the event left the track in horrible shape. On Thursday, nickel size hail fell at the track. The amateur races scheduled for Friday were cancelled in hopes that the track will be in shape for the weekend. Unfortunately it rained again on Friday and again on Saturday night. The track was decent on Saturday for the AMA Pro Quad race, the timed qualifiers and the WMA practice. With the extra rain on Saturday night, the track was in poor shape come Sunday morning. The first race of the day was the WMA moto 1 which was scheduled for 8:30. The AMA pushed back the schedule to a start time of 9:30 and scratched one gate qualifier race per class.
Here are a few photos from the Steel City MX National.
Saturday's Practice was bad, how bad? A couple of course workers got stuck in the deep mud!
Team Red Bull KTM's Mike Alessi was strong the entire weekend.
Ryan Villopoto had a rough Saturday. He crashed hard in the second practice session but was able to continue.
Team Makita Suzuki rider Ivan Tedesco.
Mitch Payton had all his bikes out on display. Newest rider Austin Stroupe #981.
Nico Izzi rode to an impressive 6th place overall in only his second race as a Pro.
Fan favorite Kevin Windham was smooth as always.
Brett Metcalf finished third in the second moto and third overall for the second race in a row.
Mike Alessi finished second overall on the day and currently sits in fourth place in the point standings.
How deep was the ruts? Team Yamaha's Broc Hepler demonstrates.
The hard charger award goes to Ryan Villopoto. RV went down in the first corner in moto 1 and charged from 37th place up to third.
Team Yamaha's Grant Langston had a close call with Windham in the first moto. The two almost collided in the air when GL spun up the face of the jump and moved towards Windham
Mike Alessi had some harsh words during the press conference about Tim Ferry. Alessi said that "he needs to get his act together" referring to the MX of Nations. Harsh words...
Hepler easily won moto one but ran into troubles in moto two. He lost the front end on the top side of the course and couldn't get the bike re-started again.
Team Pro Circuit Kawasaki swept the podium 1-2-3 for the second race in a row.
This could be the race that RV pulls away from teammate Ben Townley. RV now has a six point lead after being down two to start the weekend.
Andrew Short finished 5-4 for a fifth overall and lost the points lead to Langston.
Windham pointed out Langston after they almost came together in the air in moto number one. They exchanged words after the moto. Windham was humble in his defeat stating that he didn't want to screw up the fight for the championship between Short/Ferry/Alessi, but he wasn't going to be a pin cushion either! The fans cheered loudly after they heard this.
The Motocross podium.
Ashley Fiolek raced her first Pro race in the WMA aboard her 125 2 stroke. He pulled the holehot in moto number two and led for three laps before dropping back to third.
Sarah Whitmore went 1-2 for her first overall of the season.
\She was ecstatic with her win!
I would like to especially thank Josh Allen and Don Maeda from Transworld Motocross for allowing me to cover this event for them. I covered the practice on Saturday, and all the motos on Sunday including the Pro Quad race and the WMA races. Check out them at http://www.transworldmotocross.com/mx. Let me know what you think!
Michael Sierens