Supercross, part two

So once we sort of figured out what was going on, we settled in to watch the races. It was a pretty nice night, considering — we were both bundled up in sweatshirts and ski jackets, but our seats were under an overhang, so it wasn’t windy or too cold.

The seats were really nice. We were right behind the start line, which got a little exciting while all 20 bikes were revving and warming up, and had a nice view of the whole track. I have created the world’s most hideous Photoshop drawing of the track, which will help no one in understanding its layout.

We watched the opening ceremonies, which were less exciting than it sounds, listened to Ricky Carmichael give a little speech about how he’s still resting up and is looking forward to riding again, and generally just sat around for a while. At one point, I got up and bought beer and garlic fries. Can a sporting event get any better than beer and garlic fries? I don’t think so.

The races themselves were pretty damn cool. It was like a circus — bikes flying around everywhere, sailing over jumps, bouncing over the dirt, skidding and slipping and sliding all over the place. It was nearly impossible to watch everyone; I had to sort of focus on just one rider and watch him throughout the lap, otherwise I’d just sort of space out and gaze over twenty bikes all over the whole track. When Peter first watched the following video clip, he summed it up perfectly: “wow, it looks like popcorn!”

One of the 250cc qualifying heats (13MB)

From where we were sitting, the first big jumps were the most fun to watch. The riders would just sail in the air for what seemed like forever.

One of my favorite parts of the evening was the KTM Junior Supercross race, held during the intermission. They had 15 8-year-olds all dressed up in little KTM outfits and riding little KTM bikes. So cute! There were even two girls amongst them. That rocks. I wish I’d been videoing the winner when they interviewed him after the race — they asked him if he’d rather have a brand new KTM bike or a girlfriend, and this little blonde 8-year-old give a big smile and said “girlfriend!”. There was much cheering in the crowd. Peter said later that he should have chosen the bike, since bikes would get him all the hotties anyway. šŸ˜‰

First lap of the KTM Junior Supercross race (32 MB)

All in all, it was a really fun night. šŸ™‚

Here are the rest of my pictures.

A couple more movies:
Opening ceremonies: announcing the defending champion, Chad Reed (7.5 MB)
The start of one of the qualifying heats (6 MB)
More of a qualifying heat (10.4 MB)

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