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Gerald Langston is not only Grant`s dad but Grant`s mentor who has a good handle on things MotoCross. Gerald`s `Racing Lines` is always an interesting and informative read and will be another regular posting on Silver Bullet.
Racing Lines #51
By - Gerald Langston:
Time to catch up on Grant Langston´s activities. The South African, who did the World Cup last weekend and goes to Vegas next, will race the World SX openers - but not Bellpuig.
After Steel City Grant went back to South Africa for a 2½ week holiday. Now you may say he has been on holiday all year but in fairness he has spent 3 - 4 hours a day doing therapy, swimming, spinning and any cardiovascular work he could do without aggravating his knee.
It's been a frustrating year with only Tortelli having worse luck (but he insists on riding with #13). At his come back in Millville Grant was second with three laps to go and had a high speed crash basically because he wasn't "race" fit enough.
At Steel City with two bad starts he found he had forgotten how to race. In amongst traffic whether 5th or 25th he could not get going. If he passed someone he overshot the next corner only to have that rider and another pass him back.
After falling a few times he was one lap down and in the pits checking out a squashed thumb. Then in frustration he went out behind Bubba and for 4 - 5 laps and found that on a clear track he could run that speed. This gave him some motivation and he came back from South Africa a lot more positive in his ability.
Steel City was his last national race on a 125 and Supercross testing has started on the new 250 and is progressing well. I have always maintained Grant is a better big bore rider than he is a 125 rider. Grant's schedule for this year is the US open next weekend, the Bercy Supercross in France in November and the first two rounds of the world SX in Switzerland and Holland in December.
He will not do the MX of Nations in Spain. The whole World MX & MXDN championships have been screwed up so many times you don't know what to expect next. This whole Nations thing in America is typical. The rights were sold to some well-meaning person for a lot of money over promoters who had the experience of running successful national and international races. The people who were awarded MXON had not even run a major race let alone built the facility. But I'm sure Dorna took their money.
The next logical thing to do would have been to transfer the event 20 minutes down the road to Glen Helen but apparently Glen Helen's promoters wouldn't pay Dorna/FIM the astronomical fees.
So instead of making the best of a bad situation while everyone was here by just running the event, they rescheduled to Dorna's home country Spain. But the event has lost its glamour now, Pichon, Charmichael, Larocco, Everts, Smets, Langston, Reed, to name a few, have said they will not enter. They are making up teams of "no name" riders, but that's not what the pubic will pay to see in any large numbers.
Which brings me to the Glen Helen race. I tell you I have to take my hat off to those guys. In a week they put on a show that had the best racing of the year and the happiest fans of the year, either waving or dressed in their country's flags (remember a lot of fans and journalists from all over the world were here already).
Because the event had no FIM sanctioning some riders like Italy's Bartolini were there but afraid to ride because of threats of losing their FIM license. Other Euros who did ride said "stuff them, they cocked up, not us." The AMA did not sanction the event either because of their new working relationship with the FIM.
How did Grant do? Not bad as he only had two days of Supercross and no Motorcross testing under his belt. His first race got better but he made a mistake trying to pass Dobb for third and finished sixth. The second race he moved from seventh to second when Sean Hamblin took him out and his bike was stuck in the mesh fence. The third race he may have won but he decided to settle the score with Hamblin and finished second.
The bench racers, the majority of whom probably weren't even at the race, had a lot to say on the websites, but Grant and Sean will sort their problems out between them. They are both big boys.
Finally for our South African audience, we came fourth at the World Cup with only Grant and Albee in the team. The other South Africans, when told MXON was off, managed to cancel and recoup some expenses. So Albee came out of retirement and rode the three races of his life. If his Suzuki hand not died near the end of the last race we would have been 3rd overall. We tried to pull Hylton Beaty out of retirement as well, but after two days with no Captain Morgan and Coke his hands were shaking so badly we called it off.
A last word to our dealers in S.A., we are now the sole importers for CZ chains and Supersprox sprockets. Chains and sprockets from Yamaha R1 to KTM 65 will soon be on our shelves.
