Well, A1 2020 is officially over and just as 2019 brought a surprise, so to did 2020. Justin Barcia won again, and a bunch of guys showed they will be contenders. As I have mentioned in the past, the last handful of AMA supercross championships were not good, but 2019 made a lot of people interested again, and I think 2020 will be even better.
Of course, a sick defending champion Cooper Webb podiumed, and rookie Adam Cianciarulo finished second. I think these two might be battling for this championship, with the odd show of brilliance from Eli Tomac and Ken Roczen. Unfortunately, both these “veterans” don’t seem to be able to show consistency, and if Webb and Cianciarulo can remain composed and around the top five, then I think they might have too much for Tomac and Roczen. Be it age, or badly beaten bodies, Tomac and Roczen might have missed the boat for an AMA indoor championship.
When I awoke on Sunday morning and turned on my computer, it was a little surprised at the lack of information from promoters FELD. No press release, no podium interviews and no Highlights package. No same day live interviews, nothing. Fortunately, we had Dan Lamb at the event, and know enough people to get the information for you all, and we also got hold of the main event videos, so could get enough information from those, but I have to admit, for the opening race of the season, and the biggest race in American motocross/supercross, it was pretty slack to media attention.
Of course, as Sunday got older, and even turned into Monday, massive loads of information, videos, interviews and images came through, and we were able to give our readers a good look at what happened.
I was chatting with Dan Lamb from leading American website motoxaddicts this morning and we got to reminiscing (that is what old people do a lot) about the good old days, the 1970s and 80s, when we were young men. It was funny, but I remember, because my father had a motorcycle magazine in the 1970s, we would get the official AMA results from the supercross and motocross. Now, the World was a much bigger place in the 70s and with no internet, and the only real way of contact the telephone (which was really expensive), we used to get the AMA SX results via mail, a month after the event. Now, it didn’t matter, as we didn’t know who had won the events anyway until that white AMA envelope arrived. How times have changed and maybe I shouldn’t complain when a press release, video, or images come through a few hours later than expected.
What I enjoyed most when watching the main event videos or the highlights package was how tight the track was. It made for closer racing than some of the more open tracks and for me, that is way better. It made pressure higher, and we saw that with both Barcia and Ciancarulo crashing out of the lead and others also making mistakes. Watching a line of the leading AMA supercross riders running through a section was a lot better than the best guys checking out and watching boring racing.
Will Barcia be able to continue his good form, on past performances, it seems doubtful, but he seems confidence and he is a class rider, and one of the European fan’s favourites. Add him to the already long list of possible winners and it makes for mouth watering supercross.
As I mentioned earlier though, I am super excited for the Webb vs Cianciarulo battle. These two guys might just be able to help American be great again, and 100% I hope we see them both at the Monster Energy Motocross of Nations at Ernee in September. Pressure fighters they are, and Team USA has missed that in recent years. Is AC9 another Carmichael, Villopoto or even a Dungey, we don’t know yet, but my gut feeling is, YES, HE IS. At least I hope so, because the sport needs an American rider of the highest quality to battle the now dominant Grand Prix specialists.
It was also cool to see Christian Craig get a top three result (not finish). Having been busy with his blogs, I am really loving his fight against the establishment and coming back from a really unhealthy experience with the FIM. Was it wrong or right, I have no idea, but nobody wants a family man to struggle when he has a wife and kids to look after? I am a fan anyway, not that that means anything.
Now we await round two, and hopefully a better Eli Tomac and Ken Roczen, because if we get that, and Webb, Cianciarulo, Barcia and maybe Jason Anderson can ride well, we have a really, really exciting series ahead of us.
MX Large 1/6/20
Monday, January 20, 2020 at 1:56PM 
