COVER STORY: AMA SUPERCROSS BACKSTAGE

BY MITCH BOEHM PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR AND JEFF KARDAS

The old idiom “There’s more than meets the eye” is cliché, for sure. But like most sayings that are woven inextricably into our lexicon and culture, there’s almost always quite a bit of truth to them.

And in the motorcycling universe, there’s perhaps no better example of this than the 17 AMA Supercross events that happen each year between January and May in stadiums and superspeedways across the country.

Attend one and you’re almost guaranteed to have a smooth and seamless blast — from the fan- and family-friendly attractions happening pre-race in the paddock and parking lots, to the excellent seating and viewing arrangements, to the convenient food and beverage options, and to the high-flying racing action and pure spectacle that is AMA Supercross.

Despite the $14 beers, nachos and chili dogs, it all comes off like some carefully curated two-wheeled circus, a several-hour visual and aural extravaganza that mesmerizes young and old, male and female, Democrat and Republican, veteran enthusiast and motorcycling newbie, and everyone in between.

This is precisely why AMA Supercross is motorcycling’s Full Monty happening, and why it’s been that since the early 1970s when it debuted to wild enthusiasm at places like Daytona International Speedway and the LA Coliseum.

Of course, as on TV, in the movies and on a concert stage, you only see what you’re supposed to see. But if you really think about it, you get the feeling there’s a lot going on behind the scenes…and you’d be right, because what goes on backstage is literally shocking in both depth and breadth to anyone not intimately involved…which is 99.9% of us. I’ve been to a lot of “I remember my first AMA Supercross events over the decades, and I’ve race as Director, even been on the floor to sitting up high in the photograph a couple. But like most fans, I showed up stadium with respon- not too long before things sibility for what was started happening ontrack, which is basically like going on down on the showing up for the warmfloor, and thinking, up band (Susan Tedeschi, anyone?) for an Allman ‘Holy smokes! This is Brothers Band show back big!’” MIKE PELLETIER in the 1990s. You get all the great music, which is why you came, and there’s not a lot of waiting around…but you do miss a glimpse (or more) of the thought, planning, blood, sweat and tears that actually produced the show.

And when it comes to a single round of AMA Supercross, there are metric tons of all that…and I’m not just talking about dirt.

UTAAAH!

Salt Lake City, Utah, is my hometown these days, and I’m lucky that not only is there an AMA Supercross at the University of Utah’s Rice-Eccles stadium, but for the last few years it’s hosted the series finale — which is always good for an extra Bubba Scrub or two of championship excitement.

Earlier last year as the 2022 series was winding down, I told my colleague AMA Director of Racing Mike Pelletier that I wanted to get a more in-depth look at what it took to put on an AMA Supercross weekend, and could I follow him around Friday and Saturday during the SLC round to see what was what?

He agreed, and a month or so later I found myself sitting in the AMA HQ trailer on a Friday morning at the finale with an all-access pass around my neck chatting with Pelletier and a couple of his deputies — AMA Race Steward Tim McAdams and AMA Rider Rep Jeremy Albrecht. The trio make up the AMA’s Race Direction group, which is tasked with rules enforcement and decision making during a weekend.

The three have extensive experience in the sport. Albrecht, who joined the AMA for the ’22 Supercross season, had previously held the Team Manager post for the Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) MX team and was a factory mechanic for AMA Hall of Famers James Stewart (inducted in 2022) and Jeff Emig (2004). McAdams was also a factory mechanic with Team Suzuki.

Pelletier, 35, grew up riding and racing in New England, won some regional titles, and held a pro license. But when he decided he wasn’t going to be the next Ricky Carmichael he earned a business degree with a minor in communications, joined the AMA as amateur MX coordinator, and after proving himself in the Director of Supercross role was promoted to Director of Racing in 2020, with responsibility for all racing, including Motocross and Supercross, Road Racing, Off Road and more.

“I’m a motocross guy through and through,” he told me, “but Supercross is my baby, so it’s wonderful that this job covers both disciplines. I remember my first race as Director, sitting up high in the stadium with responsibility for what was going on down on the floor, and thinking, ‘Holy smokes! This is big!’ [Laughs]”

Given the impact Supercross has on our industry, big doesn’t even come close.

SUUUUUPERCROSS

“All of this,” Pelletier said pointing toward the door of the trailer, “is super important to our sport: what happens each weekend; the relationship with our promoter, Feld Motorsports; our relationship with the teams, riders,

OEMs and sponsors; the experience the fans have; all of it. I’m a bit younger than some who’ve come before me, and because the riders and team personnel are mostly younger, I think that helps with communications and credibility.”

“When I first got here and sat in meetings with the teams and heard what they were seeing and feeling, I listened. When they’d ask questions I didn’t know the answer to, I admitted it – and told them I’d find out and let them know. Which I did. That helped credibility, too. And along with Jeremy and Tim and the rest of our really great crew, the teams and riders seem generally happier. They don’t always like our decisions on things, but we’re trying to being consistent and up front, and I think they appreciate that.”

While we grabbed an elevator and headed up to the race direction booth at the very top of the grandstand, which is where Pelletier would watch and monitor practice, qualifying and the actual racing, I asked him to boil down his primary job during a race weekend.

“There are a ton of moving pieces, lots of players, and plenty of it all happening at once,” he said, “but from 30,000 feet, I’m the main contact between the AMA and Feld. At an event I deal primarily with Mike Muye, who’s Feld’s Senior Director of Operations – Supercross, and for future and strategic planning my contact is Dave Prater, who’s Feld’s VP of Supercross.”

“Our side deals with things like tech inspection, the rulebook, anti-doping, riders and teams, staging for practice and racing, qualifying, timing and scoring, all

on-track activity, penalties, timing with TV, etc. Before the season starts, which is during the fall months, our AMA staff is deep into rider licensing and entries and such, so there’s a lot happening before we even get to a venue.”

GETTIN’ DIRTY

The venue, yes. AMA Supercross events take place in football and baseball stadiums as well as superspeedways, and unless you’ve seen a track build in person (few ever do) or on video (plenty of those online) you simply cannot believe what goes into transforming places like MetLife, Lucas Oil, Anaheim, AT&T, Daytona International Speedway and RiceEccles Stadium from perfectly manicured turf to gnarly racetrack.

Dirt Wurx U.S.A. has been working with AMA Supercross forever and has the process down to a very detailed and blueprinted science, though you’re still talking about four solid days of work for a substantial crew, plus 450 dump truck loads of locally sourced and stored dirt; miles of protective plastic sheet and plywood for the base; a dozen haulers and smaller scoop bulldozers for dirt movement and sculpting; more miles of below-dirt piping for electrical and water; sponsor signage, barriers and tuff blocks to place; a starting gate, victory stage, webbed catch fences and start/finish tower to erect; whoops, doubles, triples and rhythm sections to build, and much more.

And then, between late Saturday night and Sunday afternoon (the crew works all night), it’s all gone, the venue clean as a whistle, the dirt trucked back into storage nearby, and all the aforementioned track stuff — towers, starting gates, lights, stages, tuff blocks, signage, etc. — packed into several of the 25 or so big-rig trailers Feld uses to carry the AMA Supercross circus from city to city and venue to venue. Yes, 25 big rigs. And that doesn’t include all the factory team big-rigs and privateer trailers and box vans.

“The track-build and set-up process is pretty amazing,” Pelletier told me. “It’s hard to believe they get that much stuff done in so little time, especially when the weather’s bad and it gets messy.”

“Alex Gillespie is Dirt Wurx’s owner and key player, and he and I are in touch all weekend long; my phone is never off. We’ll have seen a computer-generated track map before the season, and we’ll talk about the weekend’s track as it’s coming together, too; potential safety stuff, areas of concern, specific sections, whatever. We’ll talk more after it’s built, and after the track walk, too, especially if the riders or team managers have anything to say, and of course during practice, when we can see how the riders are actually negotiating the layout.”

“For instance,” Pelletier continued, “if some riders — I won’t name names here [laughs] — are tripling something that maybe wasn’t designed to be tripled…maybe where they’re landing is too close to a corner or something…we’ll see it, me or Mike Muye up in the skybox, or the AMA’s Jeff Canfield from show control, or Tim from the finish-line tower. We’ll then radio down to Alex, and if necessary, he’ll have his guys tweak things during a break. We’ll talk after practice, too, and during qualifying and racing, of course — though we have to get things pretty much final layout-wise before qualifying, for obvious reasons of safety and also fairness between qualifying groups. Alex’s group keeps busy; they’re working on 2024 season layouts now, in fact.”

FRIDAY ON MY MIND

On Saturday I’d see this process up close and personal as I sat in the crow’s nest and watched Pelletier, McAdams, Muye and Canfield monitor practice and keep a running dialog with the folks on the ground — the medical crew, AMA officials and Dirt Wurx personnel alike. But before all that came a lot of Friday preparation, including Tech Inspection and a late afternoon Operations Meeting that included essential on-site AMA officials, key people

from Feld and Dirt Wurx, the Alpinestars Medical Team and venue security.

“Tim [McAdams] oversees Tech,” Pelletier told me, “which happens at the AMA rig. Post-race we’ll impound the top three finishers in each class for 30 minutes for possible protests and occasional teardowns. There’s no set schedule on teardowns and technical checks, and we can do them anytime. We have every homologated part in the truck, cylinders, heads, swingarms, etc., which help us determine if a bike is legal.”

“During that Ops meeting I’ll connect with Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Bodnar, who’s stationed with the Alpinestars medical crew on the floor during all ontrack activity; whenever there’s action out there, he and I are in direct contact. He lets me know if anyone’s unfit going in, or if someone gets hurt during the event. He’s got a good relationship with the paddock, and the riders and managers know they can trust him.

Pelletier and crew will also touch base with the 20 or so AMA officials who handle a myriad of tasks during a race weekend, from practice and race organization to staging to timing and scoring and everything in between. “We have about a dozen core members who attend every

race,” Pelletier explained, “and there are another 10 or 12 who are regional and fluctuate depending on schedules and the city we’re in. Scheduling all this can get pretty crazy, but our staff does a great job with it.”

SATURDAY IN THE PARK

Saturday, of course, is showtime, and things got moving early at Rice-Eccles. Pelletier and crew arrived at 7 a.m. sharp, and you could feel — even if you’re a journalist watching all this happen — the air was heavy with urgency. Pelletier and McAdams did a working official’s meeting at the truck at 8 a.m. to review the day’s schedule and the specifics of what each group was tasked with on a more granular level, and when that broke up it was time for the track walk, which gave riders and crew a closer look at the track and layout.

“The track walk is no substitute for riding the course,” Pelletier told me, “but it does help riders see the layout for themselves, and give them and their team the opportunity to voice concerns or thoughts to us and the Dirt Wurx crew. There’s a bit of goofing off, which you always expect, and lots of coffee and team colors and social media going on, but it’s usually pretty serious. It used to include too many people, but

COVID restrictions helped us shave it down to size and keep it more focused.”

A riders’ meeting came next, and unless it’s the Anaheim 1 opener, where Pelletier welcomes riders and teams on a biggerpicture level, the boss has Albrecht and McAdams run it. In it they covered venue-specific items such as track exits and entrances, specific venue rules, what to watch for, scheduling info, etc.

“I don’t say much at all during the riders’ meeting,” Pelletier said, “which can be helpful during the season when something serious needs to be addressed. Because when they see me get up to talk, they’ll pay attention. They know there’s an issue! [laughs] We had that happen at Atlanta, when some of the riders were quite rude to security and [security] wanted to throw them out. I told the riders, ‘If you wanna be here, best get your sh_t together’. I was pissed. But they got it.”

From there the day sped up dramatically, with sessions of free practice for 250s, 450s, AMA Supercross Futures and, later, qualifying, which happened between 1 and 4 p.m., and which AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Ricky Carmichael loves to call “timed qualifying practice” on TV telecasts — as if viewers didn’t quite understand that “qualifying” somehow wasn’t timed and was a form of practice, not an actual race. [Sorry, RC!]

“We time free practice just in case something goes sideways

ALIGN MEDIA

during qualifying,” Pelletier told me as we watched from the crow’s nest, “and we check for track and safety issues like hawks the whole time. We also use practice and qualifying selfishly as dry-run shakedown rehearsals for the evening. Are medical folks, flaggers and officials in the right place? Do all communications work as needed? Is everyone on the same page? Are we conscious of potential areas on the track that might generate an aggressive passing controversy at, say, the end of a heat or main? [Stay tuned] As we have a wide range of riders and skill levels, are some not quite up to speed — which could cause a safety hazard? Sometimes there are difficult discussions.”

“Also, if we’re going to make track modifications over and above basic maintenance — ‘basic’ meaning smoothing out corner ruts, restoring jump and whoop faces, etc. — we have to do it during free practice, because once we’re into qualifying we’re pretty much locked in to keep things consistent from group to group within each class.” After qualifying, and before the fireworks- and light show-enhanced opening ceremonies, Pelletier met with McAdams, Albrecht, Muye and Canfield to final-check a wide range of items leading into the evening’s festivities… timing and scoring, the TV schedule, medical crew positioning, and assorted other elements. One of those elements was potential “situations” involving certain riders, as the SLC finale would determine the 250cc West title — which Hunter Lawrence and Christian Craig were in contention for — and runner-up and third-place finishing positions for the 450 series. Eli Tomac had wrapped up the 450 championship a round earlier, but Malcolm Stewart and Justin Barcia were gunning for follow-up spots behind Tomac in the championship. Would Hunter’s brother Jett get aggressive with Craig in order to help out his brother? Might Barcia or Stewart tangle for final series spots?

WELCOME TO THE SHOW

Once racing got underway after opening ceremonies, I watched Pelletier and Muye monitor the goings-on through their video monitors and a 10-foot-high plate-glass window from high above the floor. McAdams was on the intercom from the start/finish tower, and as I listened to all the back and forth and absorbed the decision-making and calls they made during the proceedings, a lot of what Pelletier had told me earlier about this phase of the evening began to make sense.

“During practice and qualifying I split my time between the floor and Race Control up high,” he told me, “but once the racing starts I’m up here full-time until post-race, when I sometimes have to present a championship plate or deal with an issue.”

“One of the key issues is monitoring crashes and injury situations during racing with Doc Bodnar and his medical team. Tim or I make the calls on red flags after quickly consulting with

Doc and the medical team, as they’re on the floor and can quickly determine if someone’s badly hurt and/or creating a safety situation. Most crashes happen at the beginning of a moto, when they’re bunched together, or at the end, when they’re tired.”

“It’s impossible to watch 22 guys at once, and everyone’s focused on the leaders, so I tend to watch mid pack, where there’s always a lot going on. We’ve been using this very cool instant-replay video system for the last two years, and as soon as something happens during the race I can quicky replay it to see what transpired. Tim and Jeremy’s monitor is tethered to mine, so they can see what I’m seeing and we can talk about it in real time, and that helps when we need to make a decision on something.

Christian Craig’s 8th-place finish in the 250 Main after an early crash netted him his first-ever AMA Supercross championship over Hunter Lawrence, and the idea of brother Jett causing mayhem with Craig never materialized due to a qualifying injury, which kept Jett out of the race. There was mayhem in the 450 Main, however, with Barcia and Stewart going at

it in the race’s middle laps, and Barcia ramming Stewart from behind in a corner to grab third overall for the night behind Chase Sexton and winner Jason Anderson.

From the beginning of the race I’d been listening to Pelletier and company mention the possibility of controversy, but when Stewart passed Barcia on lap 10 or 11 and the two were neck and neck, the small talk turned more urgent, with Barcia making an overly aggressive pass on Stewart a few turns later. “It’s gonna be a long night,” Pelletier said with a weary smile, understanding he’d likely be issuing a penalty and/or a fine to Barcia later that evening.

“When this sort of thing happens,” Pelletier told me later, “the three of us — Tim, Jeremy and myself — get together as soon as we can, review all the footage, get both sides of the story from the riders, and make a ruling…that night. This case was pretty easy; we ended up penalizing Barcia 10 points and fining him $10,000.”

Even without the point penalty, Barcia would still have finished 4th overall for the season behind Stewart, though the subtracted points did end up dropping him to 5th overall for the season behind Marvin Musquin. Barcia admitted to the aggressive move on the podium, which was admirable despite the boos raining down from the crowd, and for his part, Malcolm Stewart said very little in the aftermath, perhaps plenty happy with his top-three achievement in what was his best season ever.

As always, there’s a lot more than meets the eye in an AMA Supercross season. And in just a few short weeks we’ll be doing it all over again. You go, Mike P. and crew! AMA