2014 Motocross / Washougal: 450s

Photo: allisports

Privateers rarely get noticed but this year out at Washougal Tommy Weeck blew in like a rare hurricane over the Pacific Northwest.  A veteran of the track, he tore it up coming in as the top privateer overall on the Roost'r Trap – great job! 

We all know how Round 9 went down by now so let's take a look at moto 1 and moto 2 in the 450 class.  Privateers like Weeck, Mikhaylov and Harrison had notable performances but it was Eli Tomac who took charge in moto 1 outscoring his closest rival, Ken Roczen, by a margin of 59% while Dungey, Canard and Metcalfe rounded out the top 5.  Looking back at my results there seems to be a point where top riders separate themselves from the field and in moto 1 that over/under line was between Ryan Sipes and Tommy Weeck.  The biggest underperformers were Kellian Rusk, Jimmy Albertson and Evgeny Mikhaylov all scoring below this over/under line.  Fredrik Noren continues to impress and one guy to look out for. 

Top privateers in moto 2 were Tommy Weeck, Tommy Hahn and Kellian Rusk while Kenny Roczen, Weston Peick and Eli Tomac came in as the top 3.  Tevin Tapia also had a fine performance in moto 2 while Chad Reed had the most disappointing results leaving the race early.  The over/under line was between Tommy Hahn and Kellian Rusk with Matt Goerke taking the title of most disappointing performance as the highest AMA points leader, not including Reed, scoring below the over/under line.  Tommy Weeck had another great moto coming in 5th just behind Ryan Dungey – numbers don't lie, Weeck had a great ride. 

Finally, the 3 riders who made the biggest moves from moto 1 to moto 2 were Kellian Rusk (Pos), Matt Goerke (Neg) and Tommy Weeck (Pos) with the greatest percentage change from moto to moto.  Clearly the most undervalued rider of Round 9 was Tommy Weeck.  

Home field certainly has its advantages and Tommy Weeck did his best to catch the eye of any potential sponsors but we all know that one race neither makes nor breaks a career; hopefully this was enough to keep it going.  Good luck to Ivan Tedesco and thanks for the memories.  Unadilla in the gate; stay tuned.

The Roost'r

2014 Motocross / Spring Creek / 250 class

Photo: allisports.com

So the season is over and I'm only up to round 8.  If this were a real job I'd be sitting in a diner with Cosmo Kramer looking over my shoulder for crazy Joe Davola.  Well we all know who won by now and although Dungey was on a run it was just too little too late to catch his teammate Ken Roczen; gratulation Kenny and thanks for the memories.

So how did the boys do out at Spring Creek?  This week I decided to look at the 250 class so let's get started with moto 1.  It's clear to me that Jason Anderson had the best performance in this moto outscoring his closest opponent, Blake Baggett, by 3.97 points.  The next closest performance was that of Cole Seely who was seriously outscored by Anderson to the tune of 12.98 points.  The performances down the line were all pretty close but the most disappointing I thought was that of Hill, Bisceglia and Cunningham.  The most impressive again I thought was Anthony Rodriguez, he just keeps grinding out the laps.

In moto 2 it was a much closer race.  Top dog in this moto was Cooper Webb followed closely by Jason Anderson with a point differential of only 2.09 points.  Jeremy Martin had another outstanding ride and managed a comfortable 3rd place on my trap followed by the Frenchman Marvin Musquin.  Baggett had a disappointing finish as did Bogle and more tough luck for Cunningham.  In this moto Anthony Rodriguez scored up to 7th place on my trap, ahead of riders like Pourcel, Alex Martin, Joey Savatgy, Bell, Seely, just to name a few.
  

Figure 1 has some overall categories I thought were noteworthy.  Most Undervalued and Overvalued are just a couple of categories I came up with to help me identify the riders I think are worthy or not worthy of sponsorship dollars.  Of course this is just per race and certainly does not reflect their overall value throughout the course of a season but it's an interesting exercise. 

So there it is, Spring Creek is in the Roost'r books.  Washougal is on tap so check back to see how everyone stacked up on the Roost'r Trap; till then!

The Roost'r

Figure 1