eferees have to make some hard calls, and they have to make them in a hurry. Many sports have the luxury of timeouts and stoppages between plays; others have challenges and instant replays. Motocross and supercross races only stop for the checkered flag or the occasional red flag—and it was the possibility of a red flag that came into play early in the 2019 Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship.
Jumping the gate is against the rules, but hitting the gate is not. If it were, practically every race would see red flags and restarts. Still, when the gate shook, it caused several other riders to also lurch forward, including first-moto winner Justin Cooper, eventual overall winner Adam Cianciarulo, and Chase Sexton—all just on the left (or opposite) side of the doghouse. Sexton pushed his gate forward, while Cianciarulo briefly got his front wheel stuck. The holeshot came from the far outside gate, via Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM’s Shane McElrath.
As soon as the riders were clear, several race officials went to the starting line to confer. They agreed that a couple of guys went early, though they also felt that all gates had dropped simultaneously. MX Sports Pro Racing’s Derek Garcia happened to film the whole left side of the gate (in slow motion, conveniently enough) on his iPhone. I shot it straight-on with my own phone, then headed down to the gate. The officials quickly raised and then dropped the gate to check for an even drop. Then they did it again, and I videoed it in slow motion. We all agreed that the gate did its job, though the first two guys who hit it likely caused the others to flinch and jump too. By this time, the first lap was over, the green flag was out, and a red flag was no longer an option.
After the race, the top three overall finishers—Cianciarulo, Cooper, and Dylan Ferrandis—all said they thought the gate moved. So did Sexton and his teammate RJ Hampshire and a few others in the middle area. The referees explained the rules as well as their decision-making process, and that should have been the end of it.
But then several POV videos from riders’ GoPro cameras started popping up online, and the second-guessing picked up speed. Officials don’t have the luxury of going through every slowed-motion, hi-def angle, nor do they have an official’s timeout in their bag of tools to “go to the monitors.” They only have the red flag and the green flag (and maybe 90 seconds) to make a decision before the riders pass the scoring area for the first time. At Pala, they chose to let the race continue.
Within a couple of days, the conspiracy theories were flying. One fellow race reporter suggested it was a call based on MX Sports not wanting to interrupt the TV show—which is nonsense. Another thought that the recently moved starting gate was not anchored well enough (which doesn’t explain why it only happened to some of the middle gates, and only in the second moto). Yet another suggested all of our problems would be solved if we just went back to Glen Helen. (Not going to touch that one.)
Being a referee is a difficult job, especially in this age of social media where your decisions can be cut-and-pasted and picked over extensively. But from what I saw firsthand, as well as afterward, I believe those gentlemen made the right call. It was unfortunate that another rider’s error cause a chain reaction, but that’s the dynamic nature of motocross—not to mention why we race for 30-plus-2. 