Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
The 2018 Monster Energy Supercross Series made its first and only stop to the state of Arizona, and like it does year after year, the University of Phoenix Stadium provided a big technical track.
Since Glendale is the team’s home away from home, we usually take part in a lot of press opportunities that fill our weekend. We were fortunate enough to get to do some press riding for local TV and Racer X on Friday afternoon. That riding time is usually a few 10-15 minute sessions on a half of the track (never whoops) and it helps us out a great deal because it allows our guys to not only get seat time on what is usually a travel day, but we get to work out some of the track and get rhythms down. Heading into the Saturday program with half the track already down is a great advantage to start the day.
After our press riding, we finished setting up the Rockwell Watches rig and headed over to RideNow Peoria. We’ve actually bought bikes from the dealerships and the staff is always great to us. So, when Dano and the dealership host an autograph party, we always come out for a couple hours to meet the fans that stop by.
This is the part where I wish I could tell you we went to a crazy SX pre-party somewhere and got after it, but in the sake of honesty…I was in bed by 8:30pm.
With Arizona being an hour ahead and the race schedule being another hour ahead to accommodate the pacific time zone TV programming, it was an extra early morning on Saturday. We rolled in the pits around 7:00am to crack the trailer and get set up for the day; most of the set up is done Friday, so it is mostly doing things like pulling the bikes out and staging them, putting together gear kits for the night show, and putting out any activation props or materials.
Usually around the time we finish prepping our area, it’s time for track walk. They always put a TON of water down in Phoenix so it made track walk and the first untimed session a mess. But the track crew knows what they’re doing and their actions are usually to make sure we have a great night of racing once we go LIVE on FS1.
Qualifying went okay for us; I think overall, it was our best overall effort as a team and with all three guys safely in the night show we turned our attention to bringing Ryan Breece up to the top deck to be featured on Race Day Live where he chatted with Jim Holley and Daniel Blair. It was cool to hear the guys chop it up about the team and his success last year, winning a west coast Lites title on the Amsoil Arenacross series.
The night show, as it always does, had its ups and down; it was obviously a disappointment to have Lionnet and Catanzaro miss the mains again, but we were able to put Ryan Breece into the main and make the night interesting. When the gate dropped on the 250 final, Breecer stayed tough through the first turn and began to click off laps, slowing moving forward. At one point it looked like he was about to put in a season and career best ride, but a bike problem forced the #217 to roll the last three laps dropping the Idaho rider back to 21st place on the night.
Still sitting top 20 in points…the ROCKWELL RACING team heads north to Oakland, California for the first day race of the year. Check your local TV listings for the start time on FS1.
Follow the team on Instagram and Twitter (@ROCKWELLRACING), and of course find us on Facebook. For more information on ROCKWELL RACING and their sponsors, check out:
http://www.rockwelltime.com/team/. You can also follow them on Instagram (@rockwellwatches), Twitter (@RockwellTime), and Facebook (@rockwelltime)
