& JASON WEIGANDT
PHOTOS: SIMON CUDBY, RICH
SHEPHERD & JEFF KARDAS
“Chris Cooksey, Vital MX. This is for Eli,” began the reporter as the camera panned over to the steely-eyed Monster Energy Kawasaki rider sitting among his peers. “I know you probably don’t want to answer this, but there’s been a ton of rumors about you in the off-season, and a back injury, and how long you were off. . . . [Tomac’s face goes all gunfighter.] How are you doing now, and how long have you been back on the bike?”
& JASON WEIGANDT
PHOTOS: SIMON CUDBY, RICH
SHEPHERD & JEFF KARDAS
“Chris Cooksey, Vital MX. This is for Eli,” began the reporter as the camera panned over to the steely-eyed Monster Energy Kawasaki rider sitting among his peers. “I know you probably don’t want to answer this, but there’s been a ton of rumors about you in the off-season, and a back injury, and how long you were off. . . . [Tomac’s face goes all gunfighter.] How are you doing now, and how long have you been back on the bike?”
t this point, Eli looked as guarded and gathered as Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter. He’d been called out in front of the entire supercross press corps.
“Um, I’m good. I mean I, um, you guys will see me ride here in a little,” Tomac dodged. “We were doing motos last week, and the whole off-season was fine. . . . Um, yeah, we’re ready to rip.” And then he looked away. Next question.
Cut to Red Bull KTM’s Marvin Musquin, now on the hot seat as the camera searched for him.
“Jason Weigandt, Racer X,” began our man up front. “Marvin, just take us through your off-season a little bit. You had a knee injury and you couldn’t race your home race in Paris, and I know you have a new coach with David Vuillemin, a former winner of this event. So have you had all the bike time you’ve wanted? Or have you had a lot of time due to that injury? How has your off-season gone?”
Musquin seemed to shrink down, as if trying to hide in plain sight as he searched his mind for the right non-answer.
“Well, definitely a lot different than last year, that’s for sure,” he stonewalled with his French accent. “Last year’s was an awesome off-season, that’s for sure. But I, um, take it how it comes. That’s the way it is. There was, uh, a little issue with the knee, but we’re here, and I was able to get a little time on the bike, get it all fixed, and, um, right on time. That was the goal, so I am pretty excited and happy, so, um, we’ll see how it goes this weekend.”
He was done, and he looked satisfied with his answer, even if the reporter was not. Next.
hen this feature went up on the whiteboard in the Racer X newsroom/kitchen well before the press conference, it was planned to be split on two topics that were sure to be part of the opening rounds of the series.
First, aggressive riding in supercross and the blocking and banging that we expected to see out on the racetrack.
January 2, 2019: Rockstar Energy Husqvarna announced today that Zach Osborne sustained a collarbone injury in a recent practice crash and will miss the next four to six weeks. He is scheduled for surgery on Thursday.
“I am extremely bummed at the timing of this injury,” Osborne said in a statement. “I feel that I have reached a level of riding that I never had in my career, on a bike that I’m so very comfortable with. I know that everything happens for a reason and I’ll be back as soon as possible!”
With that, Osborne finally joined JGRMX/Yoshimura Suzuki’s Weston Peick on the sidelines. There was no hiding Peick’s situation—he’d crashed at the Paris SX in November and another rider landed on his head, causing multiple fractures to his face and jaw. But then Weston and his fiancée, Kelly Cleland, took the Ken and Courtney Roczen approach to such trauma, using social media to keep everyone informed of his health and wellbeing, as well as his ongoing recovery.
After the sit-down press conference ended, the riders were invited to go out and ride the track, which meant we really would have a chance to see Tomac ride and try to guess how ready he was to let it rip. As the riders rolled out onto the track, David Vuillemin, the new riding coach Musquin didn’t talk about in his press-day questioning, started into an unsolicited rant.
January 2, 2019: Rockstar Energy Husqvarna announced today that Zach Osborne sustained a collarbone injury in a recent practice crash and will miss the next four to six weeks. He is scheduled for surgery on Thursday.
“I am extremely bummed at the timing of this injury,” Osborne said in a statement. “I feel that I have reached a level of riding that I never had in my career, on a bike that I’m so very comfortable with. I know that everything happens for a reason and I’ll be back as soon as possible!”
With that, Osborne finally joined JGRMX/Yoshimura Suzuki’s Weston Peick on the sidelines. There was no hiding Peick’s situation—he’d crashed at the Paris SX in November and another rider landed on his head, causing multiple fractures to his face and jaw. But then Weston and his fiancée, Kelly Cleland, took the Ken and Courtney Roczen approach to such trauma, using social media to keep everyone informed of his health and wellbeing, as well as his ongoing recovery.
After the sit-down press conference ended, the riders were invited to go out and ride the track, which meant we really would have a chance to see Tomac ride and try to guess how ready he was to let it rip. As the riders rolled out onto the track, David Vuillemin, the new riding coach Musquin didn’t talk about in his press-day questioning, started into an unsolicited rant.
“I remember the day before I won my first supercross, San Diego in 2000, I crashed so hard the day before, I thought I had broken my wrist for sure,” Vuillemin said. “I didn’t think I’d even be able to race. But it wasn’t broken, and I raced the next day and won. It was the easiest race I’ve ever done. It was so easy!”
If a rider breaks a bone in his hand in October and is off the bike for four weeks but it has no bearing on him racing in January, is there any point in telling everyone?”
“How many times do you hear a rider is sick and then he goes out and rides really well?” Vuillemin said. “One year Ricky [Carmichael] had a broken ankle or something at Glen Helen, and he still kicked our asses!”
Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM team manager Tyler Keefe has a similar theory, so he encourages his riders not to cover up injuries.
“Once a rider’s guard is down, the pressure is off and a lot of times they ride better,” says Keefe, himself a former privateer on the professional circuit. “I don’t get why everyone tries so hard to keep everything secret. There are no real secrets out there.”
ast-forward to the next night. Three of the main favorites—Tomac, Musquin, and Anderson—all looked a little off in the muddy series opener. Tomac started slowly but scrambled at the end to finish third. Musquin would come across eighth, while Anderson, obviously out of sorts, was lapped on his way to 14th to start to his title defense.
The winner was something of a surprise: Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing’s Justin Barcia, who beat Roczen for his first 450SX win in years. A few days later, Barcia appeared on the PulpMX Show and was asked by Steve Matthes about all of the secrecy with injuries in this sport.
“Obviously it’s a mental game,” Barcia explained. “If a dude says he’s hurt, mentally, another guy would think, Yeah, I’ve got that guy covered. That’s the thinking that went into it. I don’t think we’re thinking someone’s going to hit us in that spot. I think it’s just a mental game, honestly.”
Barcia’s answer is similar to what Aldon Baker told us when he was asked the same question.
“I feel it’s to do with not letting the competitors have a mental advantage over you by knowing you have an injury,” said the trainer and coach for Husqvarna riders like Anderson and Osborne and KTM riders like Musquin and now Cooper Webb. “If another rider knows there is something wrong with the other, they already feel they can beat him in that condition. If they don’t know, then it’s a level playing field. You never want to show weakness in this sport. The mental side is so important.”
“I am not too sure why they do—I have never thought of hiding an injury when I was racing, nor do I worry about hiding it with my guys,” the former MXGP and AMA racer said. When asked if it’s the rider’s prerogative or the team’s to keep it all hush-hush, he answered, “I think it’s a bit of both. I think it also depends on the injury. For example, if a rider breaks a bone in his hand in October and is off the bike for four weeks but it has no bearing on him racing in January, is there any point in telling everyone?”
What about from the competition’s point of view? As a rider, did he think he had a mental advantage when he heard about someone else getting hurt?
“I suppose if you are fit and healthy and you hear your competition is dealing with an injury, it will give a bit more confidence,” Swanepoel replied. “I think that’s the main reason riders try to hide an injury.” He added that he didn’t think most riders would target, say, a knee injury if they knew a competitor was riding with one, though he maybe didn’t know about the extreme case of Josh Grant going right into Mike Alessi’s leg on the first lap at Thunder Valley just two weeks after the #800 had shattered his kneecap.
“With the group of guys I work with, I emphasize focusing on yourself and no one else,” Swanepoel added. “So on this topic, the focus is not on keeping things secret, it’s getting better as fast as possible and staying positive and not caring who knows.”
“I am not too sure why they do—I have never thought of hiding an injury when I was racing, nor do I worry about hiding it with my guys,” the former MXGP and AMA racer said. When asked if it’s the rider’s prerogative or the team’s to keep it all hush-hush, he answered, “I think it’s a bit of both. I think it also depends on the injury. For example, if a rider breaks a bone in his hand in October and is off the bike for four weeks but it has no bearing on him racing in January, is there any point in telling everyone?”
What about from the competition’s point of view? As a rider, did he think he had a mental advantage when he heard about someone else getting hurt?
“I suppose if you are fit and healthy and you hear your competition is dealing with an injury, it will give a bit more confidence,” Swanepoel replied. “I think that’s the main reason riders try to hide an injury.” He added that he didn’t think most riders would target, say, a knee injury if they knew a competitor was riding with one, though he maybe didn’t know about the extreme case of Josh Grant going right into Mike Alessi’s leg on the first lap at Thunder Valley just two weeks after the #800 had shattered his kneecap.
“With the group of guys I work with, I emphasize focusing on yourself and no one else,” Swanepoel added. “So on this topic, the focus is not on keeping things secret, it’s getting better as fast as possible and staying positive and not caring who knows.”
ast-forward to Monday, January 21, two days after the third round at Anaheim 2. By this point, there had only been a few transgressions in regard to rough riding, including a back-and-forth between 250SX contenders Adam Cianciarulo and RJ Hampshire, and some aggressive passes on Roczen by first Anderson and then Webb, yet Roczen was wearing the red plate as series points leader. So much for a feature on takeout moves. As for Tomac, Musquin, and Anderson, all were still looking for their first win of 2019.
Hours later, when one of us finally got through to someone who would know for sure, they stammered and stalled for a minute before finally confirming, but with one small caveat: “Please don’t tell anyone before the team puts out a press release.” It was too late—another source had already confirmed, and the bad news went up on Racer X Online.
Later that day, the team sent out the press release:
Anderson has broken his arm in two places, as well as a fractured rib. The injury requires surgery, which will take place today and has an expected recovery time of at least eight weeks.
Get well soon, Jason Anderson. Next question. 