The Severed Cortex

I may have shirked my writing duties, but I didn't shirk my hanging out with Robert duties. Since we last left, Robert and I have seen a couple of movies (Mall Cop - meh; and Sharks - cool, but short). It took us two shots to see Sharks at the IMAX. The first time we showed up it was sold out. We went to Dave and Busters and played video games for a couple hours instead that day.

This past weekend the plan was to go see an adaptation for kids of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. At the very last minute we decided to go to the Supercross instead. I've never been to Supercross before and I expected there to be 5-7000 people there. Tops. I was really surprised to see 35,000 plus. Never knew the sport was so darn popular. I had heard of Jeremy McGrath and Ricky Carmichael and I knew they had something to do with riding dirt bikes, but I didn't really know it was Supercross. Turns out, they were the face of Supercross for many years. Basically Supercross works like this. There are two classes, Supercross and Lite; the difference is engine size. Each class has two heats of 20 racers, for which the top 9 in each heat qualify for the main event. The stragglers in each class race a last chance qualifier, where the top two can qualify for the main event. In the main event, Lites run 15 laps and Supercross runs 20 laps. The key to it all is the hole shot. If you aren't a great racer, that is. If you are a great racer then the hole shot is not that big of a deal. You can make up the difference provided one of the other really good riders didn't get the hole shot. There were about 6 riders who were really, really, good, and a lot of riders who weren't. Case in point: James Stewart wrecked twice in the Supercross qualifier ... and still managed to finish 9th and qualify for the main event. That guy was balls to the walls. Chad Reed, who won the event, was another really good rider. Both were way better than their competition. In between it is all high production, slickly polished interviews, and overtly placed sponsorships. And a lot of eye candy, although I let Robert keep the binoculars for 95% of the time. Oh, and the Jagermeister trick jumping team was there, which was plenty freaking cool too.

Once the race goes 3 laps, it's real hard to figure out who is leading, and it's sure hard to watch all the action at once. That's true even if you were at the very top of the Jones Dome like we were. Still we had a good time.

Some pics: Start, Hole Shot, Big Jump, Technical, Straightaway
Trick Jumpers: Sweet, Sweeter, Sweeterer, Three At Once