There is no race in motocross like Red Bull Straight Rhythm. That is to say, nothing even comes close. A full-on Supercross sprint, with no turns, against the best racers in the world. Riding Supercross is very difficult, but racing it is a mind-boggling concept. Supercross is a game of precision, where riders have little room for error. That notion is very counterintuitive to the racing model, which is, “Go as fast as you possibly can; balls to the wall until the finish line.” In Supercross, that’s how riders have to operate, while also thinking, “Be smooth, be calculated.” It’s like a crossbreed of classical music and death metal.
Each race at Straight Rhythm is a SX race compacted into about 60 seconds, which compresses the entire mental aspect of a main event race into 60 seconds, as well. No room for error, yet wide open from gate drop to checkered flag. This is how Straight Rhythm separates the goods from the greats.
Riders like James Stewart and Ken Roczen, who have been given a gift from above with their abilities on a dirtbike, excel in these circumstances because they don’t have to think as much about making the bike do what they want it to do; it just happens naturally for them.
Riders often use almost-subliminal cues on tracks to remember which section is which. It could be as simple as a tree or foul ball pylon in a stadium in their peripheral vision marking a corner and subsequent rhythm section. At Straight Rhythm, those cues are less effective, because there are no turns. As Dean Wilson mentions in the video, remembering the track is much more difficult at this race.
Whoops are a massive separator at any Supercross race, and at Straight Rhythm even more so. It's the spot on the track that Travis Pastrana credits with keeping him alive as long as he was in the bracket. The whoops make up a serious portion of the track, and are the most difficult feature out there. As Vince Friese says, it’s the riders who are willing to hit them as fast as the bike can go that are going to make the difference out there. At Straight Rhythm, the factors of precision and speed in a motocross race are exponentially exaggerated because there's so little time to make the difference between rider and opponent.