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Racing Lines #58
By - Gerald Langston
It is always difficult to write a column when things have gone badly. Let me first put the rumors to bed that the problem is the bike - it is not, Grant is riding inconsistently at the moment and it s difficult to set up a bike when he rides like that.
The new KTM 250 ’03 is a great bike, it’s the horsepower king of the class and for motocross it is really well dialed in already having been raced in Grand Prixs for the past year. Where we are struggling a little is Grant is relatively new to supercross and the bike is also new to supercross. Grant is totally comfortable outdoors with his bike and says that if he has a good day he can win the opener at Glen Helen. Nobody has bought a KTM 250 for supercross, I know because I have yet to see one at a supercross. Let’s be honest, only a handful of people even do supercross, 99,9% of people in our sport buy a bike for motocross or off road recreational riding, and that is where the bike is great. Grant would be uncomfortable on any Japanese bike in supercross because it is not what comes naturally to him.
Getting back to our inconsistency problem we have a steep learning curve all round, new bike, new 250 team, riders relatively new to SX etc and some time we take one step forward and go one step back. Sometimes we set the bike up fine for the speed Grant is going in practice but then in the race like at Anaheim he goes though the whoops faster than ever before and the bike reacts like never before. When we went to Phoenix we had a good bike and good settings and as Grant’s confidence grew (he was a little cautious after he went flying at Anaheim) so the times got closer to the leader’s. In fact Phoenix was so competitive the first 10 riders including Grant were within one second of each other according to the official time sheet after the last practice. Grant in fact won his heat race in front of Carmichael, Ferry, Pastrana, Fonseca and all the other heavy hitters. Sure he had some luck as everyone bobbled at some stage, but so did he. In the first rhythm section he missed timed it and dropped from about 3rd to 7th. But that’s racing and he won it with a best lap time only 0.3 slower than Ricky.
I was really pissed off with his final performance; it was like “I’ve done my bit for the night so I’ll take it easy”. There was no fire on the first lap, he didn’t jump anything if there was traffic (and he was in the middle of traffic) and as a result people passed him left, right and over the top. A few laps later Grant cased the smallest double on the track and wobbled into a tuff box, which he fell onto and then off the other side. This resulted in another broken throttle as the bike went over and a fractured bone in his hand. The reason I am so pissed off is that I have always taught Grant to race properly or not at all. It’s always when you race half-heartedly that you get hurt.
Anyway the fracture is similar to what Ricky had last year and he rode the next week, and so will Grant (for the record it is his and his doctor’s decision – not mine). He has taken the week off for all the things doctors and physiotherapists do every day to get sportsmen back as soon as possible, but here starts the vicious circle again, no practice, no testing etc. So the plan will be just to get through Anaheim II.
I would like to end with some praise for M2R helmets. They have started a program for the KTM 50 kids that race at half time at every supercross. Each kid is offered a “Langston Replica” helmet to wear in their race and they get to keep it afterwards without costing dad a cent. WELL DONE to everyone including Sel in that program where everyone’s a winner.
