Glen Helen...The World's Fastest Start?
Wednesday, July 13, 2016 at 2:01PM Which series has the faster start – AMA or MXGP?
Racing is about going fast, and that’s especially true off the start. The faster you go, the less chance you have of getting tangled up in the mix at turn one.
Start slow and you’ll find yourself buried in the pack as the leaders sprint away. Here are two of the absolute fastest, gnarliest starts in the AMA and MXGP.
The AMA: Glen Helen
Most of us wouldn’t want to have anything to do with rocketing off the line in a professional motocross race. The speeds are incredibly high as riders fly toward the first turn, bumping elbows and muscling for rank, with 40 riders vying for the same spot. And the longer the start stretch, the worse it gets. Maybe that’s why the start at Glen Helen Raceway can be so intimidating.
The sheer length of the start at Glen Helen, in San Bernardino, California, is amazing, and rivalled only by the start at Spring Creek Motocross, in Millville, Minnesota. The difference, however, is the first turn. Riders have to slow considerably to make it at Spring Creek, but the first turn at Glen Helen, nicknamed Talladega Turn, is the steepest and widest start of the AMA Circuit.
That means riders who come flying in at over roughly 113kph barely have time to slow down, and thanks to the deep loam, they pretty much hold the throttle wide open the whole way.
Another intimidating factor is the first turn, which is a right-hander. On a motorcycle the rear brake is on the right and is actuated by foot, the same foot motocross racers like to hang off the bike for stability in right-hand turns. This means that in Talladega Turn, one of the fastest, gnarliest first turns of the AMA, riders must choose between access to the rear brake or stability and balance. Never both.
MXGP: St Jean d’Angely or Loket
The French track is merciless as the riders pin it across the start straight and fly hard into turn one. Often, there’s carnage, just like in MXGP this year and the man who makes the holeshot has, as they say in Spain, cojones.
Loket is wide, long and banks uphill into a sharp left-hander, so as the riders fan out and try to pick a variety of lines into the bottleneck which they approach at fearsome speed, there are inevitable consequences at the first-turn crunch.
Truth be told, neither really has quite the same level as Glen Helen, which European and American riders and journalists roundly agree has a start that no other track can match up to.
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