What Really Happened: Freestone National

By: Motocross.com

Posted: 06/11/09

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By: Jeff Kardas

My how things can change in one short week.

Two weeks ago we were at Hangtown – a track with 41 years of history – and this past weekend at Freestone County Raceway – a track with just 3 years under its belt. The soil was similar, but the two circuits couldn't be more different otherwise – flat as a pancake on one hand, and rolling NorCal hills on the other. Then there was the racing: Quite similar in almost every respect with Mike Alessi winning both 450 motos, while Chris Pourcel and Ryan Dungey swapped moto wins in the 250's.

With Mikey out for the season, the series is now completely up for grabs.

Now everything has changed, or at least it has in the 450's. In case you've been browsing the internet with blinders on all week, Mike Alessi is now officially OUT of the 450 points chase heading in to round 4 at High Point Raceway in Mt. Morris, PA. It's reported that Alessi put a horizontal crack in his left patella (knee cap) while preparing for a local TV crew's coverage of the upcoming race. The injury required almost immediate surgery, which has happened and apparently has gone very well. The bottom line? The 450 title chase just got blown wide open.

Chad Reed

Ivan Tedesco

Andrew Short

We said it ourselves last weekend and in the race report for Freestone after #800 dominated – that the 450 class just got boring again. Alessi was on a terror in Texas, and there seemed to be no end in sight to his humiliating performances. After Villopoto bowed out to get his knee fixed, the writing was on the wall that Alessi would be up next for a title, assuming Reed couldn't mess it up for him. Of course as it turns out, Mikey didn't need Chad's help to do it. So, the injured reserve list for top-10 450 riders so far is: Villopoto, Alessi, Millsaps, Ferry, Townley, Matt Goerke (broken leg in Texas), and of course Branden Jesseman, who's 450 skills shall remain unproven after dislocating his thumb in Texas. If we're missing anyone, please let us know in the comments. Four of those guys alone could've easily taken up the podium at every single round this summer!

Beyond that list, there's the 'riding sick and/or injured or into shape and/or just plain sucking' list, on which we'll include Chad Reed, Jason Lawrence, Josh Hill, Justin Brayton, Michael Byrne, and Josh Summey. That's an awful lot of 'iffy' riders and, when combined with those that are completely out of competition and, well, we're gonna see some guys on the podium in the next few rounds that haven't tasted champagne in a long, long time (if ever!). Heirs apparent to the podium are pretty obvious – Josh Grant, Ivan Tedesco and Andrew Short. From the sick list, we'll pull Chad Reed, who's caught and dropped all of the aforementioned riders on more than one occasion this year. However, Reed does appear to be genuinely unhealthy at this stage, and was openly sick and actually vomiting at Freestone. Assuming that's true (and there's no reason to believe it isn't, because Chad looks sickly), and assuming that he can get it worked out quickly, Reed will likely back himself into a championship this summer. Is there anything wrong with that? Heck no, if anything it'd only once again show how persistent and consistent Reed can be, despite being sick or injured. But it may not come all that easily, what with the Red Bull Honda riders really kicking it up lately, not to mention the rides put in by Josh Grant this year. Grant is definitely a bit of a dark horse though, since he's a great starter that also has a bit of a tendency to fall, plus he didn't score a single point in the 2nd moto last weekend while Reedy scored 22, which put him into 2nd place in the series. Of course that 2nd will likely turn into the series lead this weekend with Alessi out of the mix. At this point it may make more sense to look at the series starting anew – with Reed in the lead by 17 points over Grant, and Shorty, who's 18 down. After that is Tedesco, who's already 41 points out of the lead (thanks to a DNF at Glen Helen) and, well, it's turned into a 3-man race for the title.

Now that the series is heading back east to some genuinely eastern-style soil, things may get mixed up even more. Of those three 450 riders, it's likely that Grant may have the most recent experience after relocating to North Carolina to work with JGR. Otherwise, all of these guys will just have to pull from past experience racing at High Point, since none of them could be considered an east-coast specialist in any way. It will be interesting who rises to the top this weekend – and adding to the motivation will be the attraction of potentially winning an extra $3,000 for each overall win and the hope of a $25K bonus if all three rounds are won. The other two round are at Red Bud and Budd's Creek later this summer. Let's be honest though – that little bit of extra cake probably won't amount to much motivation for any of the three likely winners...

Matt Goerke

Back to Matt Goerke (who we mentioned is on the injured list), we've been mentioning the Suzuki City rider the past couple of weeks because he's been pretty much the top true privateer the past couple of weekends. We mention him this time because he's now out for most of the season. We just got this email from team manager Michael Nasakaitis that describes the situation for Matt and the rest of the team a bit better:

"We are extremely bummed that Matt was injured. He has been riding so well on the 450, and the team has been working really well around him. He had came back from a 20th place start to catch Cooper in 6th at the halfway point. It happened in the turn before the mechanic's area. His bike swapped and his foot got caught in a rut. He said he felt it snap.

He had surgery yesterday morning. We will see how recovery goes, they expect 4 weeks or so. I know Matt and how determined he is to get back on, I would be surprised to see him off that long.

In his absence, we are having Jarred Browne ride this weekend. He will be riding Cooper's bike from last year. Jarred put in some good rides last year before an injury sidelined him at Red Bud.

Here is a little bit on Scuba: Clarke had surgery on his knee after Jacksonville. In doing so, we missed some valuable testing and setup time while he was recovering. We made some good progress this past week and are looking to bounce back with some good results this weekend."

Good luck to a full-on privateer effort that's been putting in some great results the last two years.

Ricky Dietrich

Now for the break-out performances from Freestone, and that list is no doubt headed-up by Ricky Dietrich. As Ferry's (or was it Villopoto's?) substitute on a Monster Energy/factory Kawasaki KX450F, Dietrich was nothing short of a revelation. Ferry still doesn't know when he'll be back, but in his absence it's pretty clear that he'd have difficulty matching Dietrich's performance at Freestone. The former WORCS and current Endurocross champion is Kawasaki's superstar in the off-road world, and now he looks to be their top national motocross rider as well. He went from 16th to 7th in the first moto, then ran a very solid 5th-6th for the entire 2nd moto, banging bars with Reed, Short, Reardon and Hahn in the process. High Point may be a wake-up call for the wide open desert specialist though, so keep an eye on him this weekend for sure. Also putting in another great ride was Daniel Reardon, who looked very comfortable running in 2nd for the first half of moto two before Reed and Short finally got by. Reardon ended up 4th in moto 2 and 12th in moto one. That brings us to Weston Peick, who was able to back-up his Glen Helen top-10 rides after a couple of mechanicals in Hangtown had prevented it. Since Peick has done well at Loretta's recently, he'll likely be solid on High Point's similar dirt this weekend. Speaking of which – look for remarkable rides to be put in by Gavin Gracyk, Josh Summey and Tyler Bowers. They're all great riders who will be very motivated and very comfortable on the rutted, firmer clay soils of Mt. Morris.

On to the 250 class, and the story remains remarkably similar to the previous few weekends. The front trio is definitely sorting itself out, with Dungey, Pourcel and Canard proving to be the cream of the crop. Surprisingly, Canard's teammates Blake Wharton and Brett Metcalfe (have you noticed he's lost nearly all of his Aussie accent?) are really kicking it up too – and Justin Barcia's performances go without saying. The only guy that's consistently moved through and dropped this pack of riders, though, is Ryan Dungey. He's done it a few times, and it's surely taken its toll at this stage of the game. Ryan did it again in Texas, moving flawlessly from 7th to 2nd in moto one, and past Wharton, Lemoine and Canard in moto two for the win. He gained 4 more points on Pourcel, as the Frenchman once again stumbled in his 2nd moto (after winning his 3rd 1st moto this season) to end up 4th. There's still a lot of talk about Pourcel's medication induced illness, and it does appear to be affecting him later in the day.

Justin Barcia

Justin Barcia has scored zero points in his last three motos, which more or less cancels out all of the great racing he'd put in prior to that. He swapped-out and crashed hard on the first lap of the first moto at Freestone, then did the same thing in moto two before getting carted off. Word is that he's OK for this weekend, but let's hope the ruts don't reach up and bite him again.

Max Anstie once again parlayed a good start into a respectable rookie finish in moto two, where he ran top-5 for a couple of laps before ending up 10th. Finishing just ahead of him was Kyle Cunningham, who managed his first top-10 since... ever? Not sure on that, but it seems like he's been dramatically under-performing since he's turned pro – the bigger the hype the higher the expectations, and Kyle came in with a fair amount of hype.

Kyle Cunningham

Mitch Payton's gotta be bitter-sweet on his year. Running what, at least on paper, is the most ridiculously stacked team possibly EVER, Payton's boys just haven't been serving up the ass-whoopin' that many had predicted. Of course Stroupe's out, but he wasn't doing anything before his injury, Rattray can't seem to find the winning pace, Weimer's not anywhere near it at this point and Pourcel is getting mixed results. It's almost inexplicable, really, but what it does illustrate is how strong the Geico Powersports crew has become. They've moved smoothly and almost flawlessly into the voids left by the PC guys, and they're all becoming top 450 prospects in the process.

Looking forward a bit to the upcoming weekend, High Point Raceway in Mt. Morris, PA is probably the most genuinely unique track and facility on the schedule. The dirt's largely unchanged from 30+ years ago and while the track's undergone quite a few minor changes, it's still the same winding, undulating, off-camber, rut-filled eastern woods track that it's always been. This year looks no different and, in fact, they've included a short jaunt into a wooded corner that'd been missing previously, just to keep us old-timers happy. It's late spring, which in the hills of western PA means a couple of things: 1) The weather will be unpredictable – thunderstorms would not be unexpected, nor would a bright sunny day or all-day downpours. Ignore the weather reports and prepare for anything. 2) It will be warm and muggy, regardless of how much rain comes from the sky. What will be interesting is what sort of crowd shows up from the primarily blue-collar crowd that we see each year. Crowd numbers for the previous two rounds were not available, while Glen Helen's official tally was 18,000.

We'll cut it short this week, as we let this past week's events fester in your thoughts. High Point will be a good one, and the series will continue to unfold in an interesting way, that much is for sure. We'll cover it completely for you right here, with (hopefully) practice photos along with our regular race report and next week's What Really Happened.