By Dave Willet

In the AMA supercross podium interviews from Saturday’s Atlanta race, the riders all mentioned how difficult the tracks have been to race on. Riders moaning about tracks is common and it’s always a sore point as it’s easy to pass the blame for a mistake onto the circuit or even the circuit builders. But this was different and the top riders were actually making jokes about one section of the track – a wall jump into a sand section. It was meant to be challenging to the riders, and it clearly was – but for all the wrong reasons. This section caused so many problems, with the main one was vision due to the roost kicked up.

Lack of vision is a dangerous thing and even the leaders struggled when hitting traffic. Riders would often roll  the jump and accelerate hard, causing a huge roost which blasted anyone behind. It looked a nightmare when riders battled and riders were going through lots of tear-offs which is unusual in a dry race.

Poor visibility is a problem riders have to overcome in a wet race. But in the wet, the pace is normally slower so riders are not hitting the jumps with such commitment to triple or quad. 

That’s what was so dangerous on a dry supercross track as riders won’t back off! This needs to be given some thought as more and more riders are getting hurt in this game and this needs to be taken into consideration. 

The riders also stated the new AMA race schedule makes the track deteriorate quicker. The whoops are not holding up like they have in the past and riders are jumping through them instead of skipping across the top. And Ryan Dungey mentioned he’s changed his riding a little as he was always looking for a smother line.  Photo Simon Cudby/ KTM Images.