2014 Motocross | Budds Creek



Photo: George Crosland, allisports

I often criticize our broadcast crew for not paying enough attention to the entire field.  There are individual races all over the track and some of the most exciting are often found in the back.  Years ago the Speed Channel broadcast the CMRC (Canadian Motocross) series and Marc Travers, Brian Koster and Ryan Gould set the bar pretty high with the most exciting and extremely entertaining race commentary you’ll find.  I’ve concluded that one of two conditions exist with our crew; either Jason Weigandt and Grant Langston are not as skilled or they are asked not to cover the back, I’d like to believe the latter.  I suppose it’s all about the Benjamin’s and until privateers can lure an audience things aren’t likely to change.  This will never happen here at The Roost’r because the privateers make all this relevant.

Alright, so what’s new this week?  I’ve been trying to figure out how to account for some random variables for more accurate evaluations and I believe I may have come up with a tweak to my formula.  It’s a small tweak, one I call MaxMob, and when applied it creates a TRAP that may make a bit more sense to race fans.  I’ve also decided to add an extra slide to help give my TRAP’s some context.  I took a little extra time comparing the video to my spreadsheets and my figures seem to support the results.

It’s important to note that I’ve excluded up to 18 riders in certain categories this week for not meeting my base parameters.  The greatest % change category shows the 3 riders who had the largest point differential between motos either positive or negative.  Most Undervalued and Overvalued (not pictured) is a category I’m particularly interested in.  These categories at the end of the season should ultimately identify who deserves the richest contracts in terms of relative performance – but then how do you put a price on a million dollar smile?

Next post I may avoid some redundancy and I’d like to keep them short but for now this is it.  Thanks for clicking in.

The Roost'r

2014 Motocross | RedBud

Photo: promotocross.com

RedBud; that has a different meaning here in Colorado but for those dirt bike enthusiasts it means just one thing and that’s Lucas Oil Pro Motocross.  I actually missed the broadcast and as of this posting I have yet to catch the replay so this should be fun.

The problem with TV is that the broadcast focuses on the front and they often miss a lot of what's happening in the back.  My TRAPs illustrate a race in one frame so now you can keep tabs on your favorite rider in every moto without having to read through paragraphs of text the day after, hoping your guy is mentioned.  Remember, I'm NOT looking for winners and losers but rather measuring individual performances.  You can find box scores and play-by-play anywhere, here you're going to find something different.

It appears that we are on the threshold of some groundbreaking technology that will absolutely change the way we watch motorsports.  This new technology will take timing and scoring to a whole new level but it’s too early to tell if this technology will be available to “the great unwashed.”  I suppose only time will tell.

Well, I’ve decided to cover just one class again given my time constraints and I actually find it more interesting to focus on one group of riders so let’s take a look at the 250 motos.

It's all about the O so I updated this post to reflect the entire field however I did exclude 15 riders for scoring outside the base parameters.  I ran a whole bunch of filters to find some of my favorite stats and you'll find some of them in figure 1.  The overall TRAP for Red Bud is posted below. 

Figure 1

It appears to me that some of these riders had better rides than their finishes would suggest.  I should remind everyone that I haven’t seen the full coverage but I suspect I’m not far off.  Below are the TRAPs for the 250 riders.  I'd like to catch up  but now we have NFL preseason and Shark week; it's always something.

CORRECTION: Jessy Nelson should be 2nd overall in moto 1.

The Roost'r