Seat Concepts
Friday, January 19, 2024 at 1:40PM FOX 5's Heather Lake reports from Mission Valley as she speaks to another local, AMA legend, Broc Glover. Glover won at San Diego back 40 years ago, and his knowledge of the sport is just breathtaking. A really cool interview with a really cool guy.
Friday, January 19, 2024 at 11:00AM 2024 Dakar... Brabec and Honda can see the finish line!
Ricky Brabec took a huge step toward winning his second Dakar Rally today. He finished in second place, 32 seconds behind Ross Branch, his chief rival for the overall victory tomorrow. He opened the trail all day, which usually puts a rider at risk for navigation errors and massive time losses, particularly on a long, difficult stage such as today’s. Brabec stayed on track, though, and captured 5 min 45 secs in time bonuses. Overall, the gap between Brabec and Branch remains at over 10 minutes. Adrian Van Beveren is in third, some 14 minutes behind. Brabec will start behind Branch on the final stage tomorrow, allowing the American rider to follow rather than lead.
Stage 11 was a 420 km long stretch through canyons and dry rivers, taking the competitors from AlUla to the final bivouac in Yanbu. The terrain was mostly rugged, with rocks and stones lining up the entire length of the special. On the final day of Dakar 2024, the race will take the competitors on a shorter 175 km long special, devoid of major difficulties.
Ross Branch: “It was a really cool stage today. I had a lot of fun right from the start until the finish. I really enjoyed myself out there – the bike was going amazing, and I made no mistakes today – which is quite important to stay calm in the race. The leader of the race has a significant lead over me, but I’m really happy with where I am at the moment, and I’m looking forward to the last day tomorrow.”
Ricky Brabec: “It’s close. I opened the whole day by myself and I was expecting my team-mate Nacho to catch me, but unfortunately he had a little issue. Then I was waiting for my team-mate Adrien for him to grab some bonus time. I know Ross is pushing hard today and I don’t know what the results are so far from the stage, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be me, Adrien and Ross as the top 3 tomorrow. We’ll see what happens, but there’s still one stage to go. I would say it was my best ride of the rally. On the last 100 km, I went really slowly just to get here and wait for my team-mate, but I made no mistakes today. I put my head down and I got to the finish. The first goal on the Dakar is always to make it to the rest day. Obviously, you have to make it day by day, so the first goal is essentially to make it day by day, but after you make it through the first day, you say I want to make it through the second day and then you want to make it to the rest day. Once you make it to the rest day your next goal is to make it to the finish. If you finish the Dakar, that’s a win. It’s gnarly, the Dakar’s not easy, especially for the bikes because we’re up at three in the morning and we’re riding all morning, we’re riding all day and we’re getting back to the bivouac late. But finishing the Dakar is a win in my book and if you can win the Dakar it’s legendary. We’ll go back to the bivouac, we’ll talk to the team and we’ll push on for tomorrow.”
Jacob Argubright: “Stage 11 was a fun one with lots of rocks and tough terrain. Pretty smooth day finishing P14 but with another penalty putting me back to P21. Guess it’s year of the penalty and mishaps for me but all great learning experiences. I’m healthy and ready for the final stage tomorrow!”
Thursday, January 18, 2024 at 10:58AM Ricky Brabec cements his lead in the overall standings as the final day of the 2024 Dakar Rally awaits for the Monster Energy Honda Team riders.
Thursday, January 18, 2024 at 10:51AM 
Dave and Marty Smith celebrating a win!
Legends and Heroes, along with their spokesman Broc Glover, is proud to announce that they will honor Dave Arnold at the San Diego Supercross on January 20th., 2024.
For nearly 50 years, Dave has been one of the motorcycle industry icons since beginning his career at Honda in the mid-1970s. Soon after he began at Honda he started working with Marty Smith, who won the ‘74 and ‘75 125cc titles, as well as the ‘77 500 championship. Fast forward 50 years and Dave is still at it, working with Triumph Motorcycles in the development of their new motocross line.
• Dave was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 2021
• Working with Roger De Coster, Dave organized an all-Honda effort comprising riders Donnie Hansen, Danny LaPorte, Johnny O’Mara, and Chuck Sun and scored Team USA’s first win in the Motocross des Nations and Trophee des Nations.
• Dave has a long list of motocross and supercross titles with riders including David Bailey, Rick Johnson, Ron Lechien, Jean-Michel Bayle, Jeff Stanton and Jeremy McGrath.
Parade Lap of Champions to Honor Dave Arnold
Dave Arnold’s contribution to the sport has led to numerous world championships and paved the way for successes enjoyed by every manufacturer today. With the suggestion from Feld Entertainment, Legends and Heroes has invited many of Dave Arnold’s friends and former teammates to join us in this celebration and will be doing a parade lap around the racetrack at San Diego’s Snapdragon Stadium. The parade lap will feature about 20 past champions of our sport. Riders like Lars Larson, Broc Glover, Tommy Croft, Gary Chaplin, Rex Staton, and Grant Langston to name a few. Four-time National Champion David Bailey, and Monster Energy Supercross announcer Danny Hubbard will handle rider introductions. These past champions will be riding vintage motorcycles in period correct gear.
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at 3:09PM Honda Dominates Dakar
The 2024 Dakar Rally continues to be a Honda dream event with the team’s sixth stage victory today. Teammates Adrien Van Beveren, Ricky Brabec and Pablo Quintanilla went 1-2-3 on the day and now occupy three of the top four spots overall. Ricky Brabec continues to have near perfect rides from day to day, always close to the front but never getting a stage victory and therefore never having to start first. His lead in the overall standings has now grown to 7 minutes, although Hero’s Ross Branch won’t let go of second overall and is the only fly in the Honda ointment.
Ricky Brabec
Ricky Brabec: “Today was possibly one of my only shots to make a big push and try to make a bit bigger gap than forty or fifty seconds so I gave it my all today. I think tomorrow we’re probably going to have to open but if I can clean up I think we’ll be set free. In the 2020 Dakar I pulled a gap early on and this has definitely been the most stressful race of my life because it’s so close. Anyway, with a few more days to go, let’s keep the hopes up and keep charging.”
Jacob Argubright: “Little bit of a bittersweet day for me. Rode really well and finished P15… but I missed my first waypoint ever and the penalty put me back to P23. I still had a really fun day on the bike so I’m going to continue bringing that energy into the last 3 stages!”
Kyle McCoy
Kyle McCoy is the U.S. service veteran who is riding in his third Dakar. Currently, he is running 12th in the Originals By Motul classification, which allows no outside assistance. On social media, he recently posted his account of a harrowing incident on Stage 7: “I came over the crest of a very large dune right as the cars caught up to us in the mid pack. When I came to the bottom of the dune I dropped the bike in the sand. I was in the main line of traffic when this happened (which I normally avoid for this reason) so I rushed to pick it up and get going. Only the bike didn’t start. I ran up the dune as fast as possible on all fours clawing at the sand to mark my position with my helmet right as one of the lead cars was coming at me. Then I ran back down as cars and bikes came through all around me. It took me a while until it was quiet and I realized I couldn’t hear the fuel pump when I pressed the starter. All this happened in a very chaotic,sweaty and loud way. Then a nice French man came on the phone from Paris to my bike and asked if I was okay. I said yes it was mechanical. He then asked “How long will it take you?” What??!!!! I said I had no idea. 5 min later he said it again and then again until I shouted to the nice French guy I needed him to shut up. I said it with more direct language than that :)… he was just doing his job though. I then remembered it’s usually the fuel tank selector (front to rear) when you don’t hear the fuel pump and there’s a bypass created by BAS Dakar that I had on me. I took it apart and plugged it in and voila. I’ve done some stressful things (like all of us) but this was top 5 in my life. The low and high were so extreme I can’t express it in words.”
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at 3:06PM 5 X World Champion testing the new HRC CRF
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at 10:11AM
2024 KX450 SKID PLATE
Retail $ 94.95
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Features:
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at 9:44AM 
Kevin Benavides has won stage eight of the 2024 Dakar Rally ahead of his brother Luciano Benavides and Adrien Van Beveren while Ricky Brabec extended his advantage in the overall standings.
Thankfully for the riders, stage eight at Dakar lessened the intensity a little with the 458-kilometer timed special split into two – a 179-kilometer liaison joining the two very different halves. The first leg consisted mainly of sandy tracks and dunes, but the second half posed more of a challenge with stones and rocks covering much of the final 119 kilometers leading to the finish in Ha’il.
Times were tight on the stage, with the top six riders separated by less than two and a half minutes. defending Champion Kevin Benavides came out on top, however, skillfully navigating his way through the special to complete the day’s racing 31 seconds ahead of his brother, Luciano. Retaining his fifth place ranking in the provisional overall standings, Kevin continues to close in on the rally leaders, stage by stage.
“It has been a really good day today – I really enjoyed the ride,” Benavides said. “The stage was split into two with the first part more sandy tracks and dunes, but with a lot of navigation. And the second part was more stone and mountains. The two guys opening the stage – my brother and Nacho (Cornejo) – did a really good job, but I was able to catch them both by the end. I’m so proud to win the stage and have a 1-2 with my brother. It means I’ll be opening tomorrow, so hopefully I will do a good job. I’ll give it my all as always.”
Starting just behind his main rival on stage eight, Rally leader Ricky Brabec pulled out the stops to lead most of the day increasing the gap at one point to over three minutes over second placed Ross Branch, but after 400 km of the special he had dropped behind his teammate Adrien Van Beveren that lost him time in the final 50 kms to end the day in seventh. Having caught Branch early on he rode with him for the majority of the day not letting the Botswanan out of his sights as he opened up his overall standings lead to 42 seconds.
” didn’t want to start too far away from Ross tomorrow so I had to play a little bit of cat and mouse with him,” Brabec explained. “I caught him early on so stuck with him all day, then at the refuelling point I saw some times and I was winning. I let Ross take over and open the way to the finish line as we had to play smart today and I didn’t want him starting behind me tomorrow. It was still a good day to finish seventh and I’ll continue to have fun out there.”
With riders spending the night next to Ha’il airport, they will take off for stage nine towards AlUla which makes a return to the route on this year’s Dakar. The fascinating ancient city will welcome the riders after a total 639 km distance, 417 km of which will test them to their limits with complicated navigation and rocky expanses keeping them on their toes.
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at 9:38AM Jorge Prado has performed respectably in his Monster Energy Supercross adventure. The adverse weather conditions provided him with quite the opportunity in San Francisco's Bay Area and he grabbed that with both hands – his heat race win will be remembered for months.
Monday, January 15, 2024 at 10:16AM 
After Anaheim one it looked like the story was set. Jett Lawrence was the man to beat and Chase Sexton and Eli Tomac weren’t on the pace they needed to be to challenge, and by the time they got there it looked like Jett could have a comfortable points lead unless Cooper Webb on Jason Anderson kept their good form and roughed him up or Ken Roczen got around a first turn free or incident. Either way, Jett looked in control no matter what was thrown at him.
Then the mud changed the plans and the momentum. Jorge Prado even won his first ever heat race in a close battle over Chase Sexton as both surprisingly walked away from Jett Lawrence who crashed twice, then crashed again in the main for a ninth place, again behind Prado but more importantly, three of his biggest title rivals all made the podium.
We may have found Jett Lawrence’ only (temporary?) weakness – mud. While at the same time, Eli Tomac had a great rebound in second, Ken Roczen came through the field again, this time to third and an increasingly confident Chase Sexton dominated in the mud with the best start of his life – how did he do that?!
Sexton even said he actually wished it was dry such is the progress with his new KTM over the last two weeks. Chase saying in the press conference he got the back end sorted before A1 and felt that last week they got the forks sorted. The win and the red plate will only add to his confidence. He know believes he can match Jett on pace and is better than he was last year on the Honda – and he is talking about dry supercross tracks. He looks confident again and believes he’s back to the level he knows he can and should be at.
So, round three might be the new round one. Webb and Anderson know they are fast in the dry, Jett is already saying he wants to win this weekend to right the wrongs of San Francisco, but for the first time since he has been on a 450 he has somewhat lost momentum – or has he? This is a new situation for Jett Lawrence. Let’s see how he responds.
The mud has let Chase Sexton get back to the front of the series, he admitted to gatedrop he didn’t expect to be at this level so fast in the series, he’s there and he’s ready to battle Jett, and so is Eli Tomac who erased most of the gap Jett got on him at A1. He admitted he just rode poorly and then made a bike change last week, so in the dry and back in the points mix, Tomac will be looking to get back to his best. And we have Ken Roczen back on the box and proven fast whether it’s wet or dry this year. If he can finally get around the first lap without a crash or a stall as happened the last two weekend’s, watch out.
Everything has been reset. All the main players will believe they are ready to win now. Jett feels he has to reestablish himself as the man while Chase Sexton wants to prove he still is and the rest want in on the party. The battle is on.
Anaheim one in 2005 ruined the entire season. It gave Ricky Carmichael a solid championship lead instantly over Chad Reed who DNF’d and struggling Stewart in the mud. Both never recovered, with a desperate Stewart breaking his arm in practice the next weekend pushing too hard to impress in the dry after an extra week’s wait for the most anticipated race ever. Chad Reed won races but could never get the points back to level. RC could control, the rest were instantly on the back foot. The mud ruined 2005 but it has made 2024 – at least for round three.
San Diego is the place to be on Saturday night!
Words: Jonathan McCready
