Courtesy of RacerX

March 8, 2018 11:20am

by Ryan Sipes

We decided to switch thing up this week and bring in 51Fifty Energy Drink Yamaha’s Kyle Chisholm, who finished 13th in Atlanta, as well as CycleTrader.com/Rock River Yamaha’s Alex Ray, who is currently out injured. Also, our regular contributor Ryan Sipes is back.

1. WHY WAS THAT ONE TRIPLE SO GNARLY?

Kyle Chisholm: I'm not really sure why that triple got so many people. Yes, the track was a bit soft and rutty, but that triple wasn't a really big or difficult triple to clear. The turn did form a lot of ruts ranging from railing the whole top of the berm to many lines cutting down lower and lower in the berm. And the triple face did have multiple ruts, but none that were really deep enough to drag your pegs. I think it just came down to guys trying to find a smooth piece of track on the edges and carrying maybe a little bit too much speed around the corner and clipping the Tuff Blox on the jump face. 

Alex Ray: There was a few crazy crashes on that main triple. I went back and re-watched the race to see why everyone was KO-ing themselves over it. The dirt was soft in practice and the track got chewed up. I noticed a few guys getting cross-rutted in practice. That’s always scary over a triple face, and you don’t really know which way the bike is going to go. Sometimes you’re already sideways or upside down before you leave the jump, therefore creating a cattywampuss effect! Also, it was in between two rhythms, which made it a little bit tighter coming out of the 180. When these guys are pushing the limits in qualifying and racing, they tend to drift out a bit too far into the Tuff Blox. But this weekend was crazy!

Ryan Sipes: I was asking myself the same thing all night. The only reason I can think that guys were drifting so wide is the distance from the corner to the jump. Normally when they put a triple right out of the turn, it is literally right out of the turn. Just enough room for the 250s to barely be able to make it. In those cases, you can’t blast the corner like a madman because you know you need to be smooth and get enough drive to make the jump. At Atlanta it looked a little further out, so I think guys were rushing the corner more than they normally would, which was pushing them wide. I couldn’t tell on Weston Peick’s crash because of the camera angle, but with Dylan Ferrandis, it looked like he hit the corner hard, faded a little wide, then before he knew it, he was on the face of the triple and it was too late.

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RacerX 2018 Atlanta Triple Crown 3 on 3