2020 San Diego Supercross | Monday Kickstart

It took six rounds to do so, but it was good to see defending Supercross Champion Cooper Webb earn his first victory of the year at San Diego. Like last year when he scored his first win of the season at Anaheim Two, we expect to see a charged-up Cooper Webb crack off more now that he's broken the seal on the season.

In contrast to the custom jackets that Alpinestars athletes usually wear down to the starting line that mirror their jersey graphics, Eli Tomac wore one of Astars' street riding jackets.

Tedder Racing's Martin Davalos had a special military themed AP Designs paint job on his Arai VXPro-4. We must admit that while Arai stands by its helmet technology and maintains the same basic round shell shape that it's had for years, the new mouthpiece and rear venting channels have done wonders for its appearance.

Justin Barcia's Alpinestars Bionic Neck Brace gives him a nunchback appearance on the starting line on cold evenings when he wears his jacket for the parade lap.

Anderson too...

San Diego was an event to forget for poor Cameron McAdoo. After a big crash during Friday's press day motos, the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki rider DNFed the main event when his bike stopped running. McAdoo, who returned last week after missing a round due to collapsed lungs, was running a strong fourth when he retired from the race.

It was surprising to see David Vuillemin so happy and excited about Dylan Ferrandis' win in San Diego, as he usually appears grumpy, no matter the result. When the crowd booed Ferrandis on the podium, DV Tweeted, "Boos = a good race." Come on people, let's be more respectful than that.

Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha's Jeremy Coker helps out his riders with their podium speeches...

There's two Western Regional 250 Supercross Championships in this photo. Soon to be three?

Dean Wilson participated in Military Appreciation Day by wearing this Air Force-themed O'Neal Element race wear.

Props to our buddy Alex Ray, who raced into his fifth 450 main event of the season. The day was not smooth for ARay, as the rod in his SGB Racing/Maxxis/Babbitt's Kawasaki KX450 let go in the final practice session and blew a hole in his engine cases. The team got it swapped out in time for Ray to finish 19th in the main.

Attention to detail: Rekluse complemented the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha camo graphics with this super-cool anodized clutch cover. Want!

Remember in the late 90s/early 2000s when racers would leave the small paper tags on the strap of their brand-new goggles? We spotted Michael Mosiman with a fresh set of Fly Racing LE Lite Camo Edition pants, with Boa labels still intact. Trend setter!

With none of the GEICO Honda racers well enough to compete at San Diego, Shift and Fox recruited Josh Hansen to ride during the press day motos so they could gather some product photography. Though it was great to see Little Hanny and his smooth riding style circulate the track, some fans on social media were quick to complain that he "stole a valuable press day spot" from a needy privateer. Get over it, people...

Looks like Ken Roczen's shaka state-of-mind is wearing off on his mechanic Jordan Troxzell.

Dylan Ferrandis remains one of the only professional racers to wear a traditional over-the-jersey chest protector when he rides. Dress for the crash, not the ride!

To complement the limited edition Padres Shift MX kit, a Fox Racing V3 helmet was hand=painted to match. "Dave Durham was out behind the office rattle canning that thing a few days ago," said Shift MX's Andy Bakken. Pretty cool!

Fly Racing released a limited set of Lite Camo Race Wear for the San Diego race. We really liked the jersey lettering that the brand adopted for the Military Appreciation Day!

Dylan Ferrandis is one of many racers who wear a mouthpiece to not only protect his grill, but to guard against concussions caused by the top and bottom teeth clacking together violently in a crash. Ferrandis' mouthpiece is custom-made with French flag colors...

Nothing like a little pep talk from your honey before hitting the track.

Bell Helmets jumped in wholeheartedly with the San Diego Military Appreciation theme. Both Austin Forkner and Cameron McAdoo had these cool one-off lids.

Scott Motorsports also created a limited-edition run of camo Prospect goggles. Available now, the camo design also comes in the new Fury style, too!

Eli Tomac's helmet carried the US Air Force logos as his brother is an airman.

The creative forces at D'Cor Visuals and GEICO Honda always come up with something for special races and this snow camo setup would have looked excellent under the lights in San Diego. Alas...

Toyota of Escondido is a proud sponsor of the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha team. The 19th Annual San Diego Supercross Party went down last Thursday and the entire Star team and more were on hand. Check out the video elsewhere on our web site!

We spotted the SGB Racing/Maxxis/Babbitt's Kawasaki team making some mid-series changes to its pit area. Alex Ray and AJ Catanzaro have been running FMF Racing exhaust systems for a couple weeks now after starting the season with a different supplier.

Luke Clout started the day at San Diego running this set of Military Appreciation graphics, but switched to a set with less green for the night show.

Mitchell Oldenburg is out for a few weeks with a knee injury he suffered last week during training. This is the night show graphic that Clout raced to sixth with.

Pure Kana is a CBD brand that sponsors Yamaha privateer Kyle Chisholm and the FXR/Honda team. Three flavors of the brand's new CBD-infused beverage were on display in the pits, but due to Feld's partnerships with Monster Energy and CBD MD, no sampling was allowed. We bagged a bottle of the acai flavor when no one was looking, though, and it was amazing!

Malcolm Stewart paid tribute to the late Kobe Bryant during the afternoon practice sessions with this Seven MX jersey. Permission was granted to Stewart beforehand to run the jersey by the AMA.

Candy red hub, carbon fiber disc guard, coated lower fork legs, a billet front brake caliper, a spec Dunlop tire. Does it get much better?

If you ever wonder why factory foot pegs are so sharp, here’s why…

Dylan Ferrandis is one of the few riders to wear a hard shell over-the-jersey chest protector, which means the THOR MX crew has to add a nameplate to the backside for hand scoring. Can you easily see the white 1 on the black background? Apparently, there was a little issue at a recent race and the AMA scoring staff couldn’t clearly make out the name and number. Maybe it’s just us, but we’d think it’d be hard to confuse Ferrandis with any other rider on the track.

Good job, Bryson Gardner. The BWR Racing rider recently scored the necessary points in the Supercross Futures program and lined up for the San Diego Supercross, the final round before the hiatus. A complete rookie, Gardner advanced directly from his Heat Race to the Main Event, no small feat, and posted a 19th place result against a very experienced field. We’ll keep an eye on him when the West Coast resumes in a few weeks.

This sums up how most on-track incidents go. A rivalry has been brewing between Martin Davalos and Justin Barcia, which included a run-in during the Oakland Main Event that left Davalos on the ground and continued with a spat that every at Friday’s press riding session saw first-hand. Barcia was irked by the way Davalos faded over one of the triples and immediately took action in the next turn with a block pass that caught the front-wheel of Davalos’s bike. The two shared their opinion with each other after the session and Davalos was ready to drop the gloves, so to speak, but Barcia downplayed the confrontation in an effort to stay of the FIM’s radar and pursue the championship. Don’t think this is the last you’ve seen of Davalos and Barcia…

Mitchell Falk’s 2020 effort is thanks in part to some support from close friend and well-known film maker Ryan Walters. Always one to pay attention to the details, Walt had Tagger Designs paint a Fly Racing Formula helmet with iconic sights of Southern California, including the Hollywood sign, Angel Stadium A, and a beachside boardwalk. This is certainly a lid that will get a place on the mantle at the end of the season.

Shout out to the local. Oceanside native Chase Felong has followed the 250 West Coast region through the first part of the year, but the San Diego round was definitely the home race of the schedule. A San Diego news station filmed a piece on Felong during Friday’s press riding session and the young privateer showed some promise during Saturday’s race with the 27th fastest lap in qualifying, a 12th place in his Heat Race, a 15th place result in the 250 LCQ.

Justin Cooper’s bike was without the red plates in San Diego, as the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider has slid to second in the championship standings. When asked if there was any more or less pressure to reclaim the top spot in the series, which he held from Anaheim One to Oakland, Cooper stated that it was no different either way.

Robert Fitch made sure everyone on his team looks the part, no matter their size…

Sounds like the Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing team is making the most of Ryan Villopoto’s role as brand ambassador, as the multi-time champion has helped Aaron Plessinger and Justin Barcia at the track during their practice motos. It’s cool to see teams and the current crop of racers taking advice from guys like RV, especially because his methods have been proven to work in a recent timeline. With the wit of this group, we have to think that the test track conversations between Barcia, Plessinger, and Villopoto could never be fit for print.

Factory, down to the feet.

Here’s your chance to put a face to a name before the 250 East Coast region kicks off in Tampa. This is Pierce Brown, a rookie on the Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/KTM squad aboard bike number 163.

Did you love the paint job that Troy Lee Designs laid down for Team USA at the 2019 Motocross of Nations? Well, now’s your chance to have a patriotic lid of your own, because the gear brand has produced a version of the SE4 helmet with the same scheme, dubbed “Liberty.” There’s a full line of riding gear to go along with the helmet, but we knew you’d stop scrolling when you saw the red, white and blue.

The Rocky Mountain ATV-MC/WPS/KTM crew always gets in on the Military Appreciation theme and swapped their standard look for a digital camo graphic set and matching seat cover.

On Saturday morning the ODI sponsored teams swapped out their usual handlebar pads for a special print that included artwork that showed the flag being raised over Iwo Jima in World War Two.

Seeing a factory bike on the stand never gets old. What parts of Adam Cianciarulo’s Monster Energy Kawasaki stick out most to you?

Sounds like Justin Barcia and Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing are making progress on the YZ450F. We all know that Barcia and the crew created a less powerful engine package during the offseason and now their efforts are being directed at the settings of the KYB suspension. Barcia’s bike is outfitted with a standard style spring fork and matching factory shock, which has been tuned with input from enzo racing’s Ross Maeda. Every time we’ve been by the pit, we’ve heard how happy Barcia is with his setup on the all-new motorcycle. It will be very interesting to see if this pays off with improved results on the East Coast.

Taika Koga took a digger on the very first lap of the First Timed Qualifying Session on Saturday afternoon and the practice had to be stopped to attended to the downed rider. After a few minutes, Koga was loaded onto the medical cart and sent to a local hospital for emergency surgery to close a laceration on his backside. It’s a bummer for the Japanese racer, especially as it comes one week after his Main Event appearance in Oakland, but he can take some pride in knowing that his setup is one of the best looking on the track.

One band-aid on the cheek away from recreating the cover of Nellyville…

As an editorial staff with a history of hairstyles (mullets and Fabio drape, pompadours and buzzcuts), we respect Roczen’s dye job.

Team Solitaire went all-in on military look with a fighter jet theme on their Yamaha YZ250F bikes, Leatt gear, and Arai helmets, shown here during RJ Wageman’s flyover during the afternoon practice.

Did you see our Fox Feature on Chad Reed’s special gear for the San Diego Supercross? The designers at Fox Racing decided to take cues from the Chargers uniforms when the NFL team played at Qualcomm Stadium, a venue that Reed was very successful when Supercross ran there in the early 2000s.

No custom gear would be complete without a painted helmet to match, so Fox Racing had apdesigns lay some bright blue and yellow paint on a V2, then added details like necessary sponsors, Charger bolts, and ghosted accents. Maybe a feature with Reed and his favorite helmets should be something we try for before the year is over…

The theme of the San Diego Supercross was embraced by everyone, including foreign born riders that have moved to the United States, including Dean Wilson. O’Neal Racing lifted the Warhawk pattern from their Element line and laid it on their new performance Prodigy chassis for the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing rider.

Is the kidney belt the sign of a true Vet Class rider?

We’ve seen a few people online spread a theory that Cooper Webb was only fast because Roger DeCoster made the track crew cut down the whoops for the night show. So, what about when Webb was the fastest rider of the 450 class during the First Timed Qualifying Session? Sorry to poke holes in your theory, especially after you used all the tinfoil on that nice hat…

See the outline under Justin Brayton’s FLY Racing jersey? The Team Honda HRC rider is one of the many that runs a thin chest protector under his shirt, which is something he only started doing during the past offseason. A practice crash between rounds of the Australian Supercross Championship left Brayton with some internal injuries and put his run at the title in jeopardy, so he started to wear a thin CE certified vest to avoid a similar scenario in the future.

The upcoming Tampa Supercross will be this year’s This Race Saves Lives race with the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Penrite Honda has stepped up to support the cause. The team and sponsor FLY Racing will give one young recipient a new Honda CRF50R, a set of FLY Racing gear, and a day of riding with Luke Clout.

Get ready for lots of jumping through the whoops.

Since GEICO Honda didn’t have any riders on the track, the team opened their rig to the public and wheeled out all of the race-ready CRF250R bikes for fans to see up close. Chase Sexton’s bike was a centerpiece of the show, as it featured his well-deserved number one plate and red backgrounds for his upcoming 205 East Coast title defense.

More custom painted helmets, Benny. Thanks.

San Diego is the home race for eyewear brand 100% and the company paid homage to the Drew Lien era with a special retro capsule that included a sharp white hoodie, long-sleeve shirt, and corduroy cap complete with orange and purple prints, shown here by rider service rep John Kuzo. Act fast if you want it, because this limited release will sell fast.

Hey, props to Aaron Plessinger. The Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing rider has shown progress in recent weeks and his start in the San Diego Main Event was his best since last year’s injury. A small tip-over cost him key spots, but he didn’t let it deter him from pushing all the way to the checkered flag and he was rewarded with a hard-earned 10th place finish.

Downtown San Diego makes for a perfect black backdrop. From a photographer’s perspective, Petco Park is one of the best sites of the Supercross series.

Is Dylan Ferrandis building a wine cellar with his podium champagne? The Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider didn’t pop the cork on his bubbly after the win and instead had mechanic Alex Campbell put the bottle in his toolbag for the ride back to the pits. We noticed that Ferrandis did the same after his A2 win, most likely to not seem like he was celebrating the run-in with Craig.

Wipe it down. Mechanics make sure there’s nothing that would cause a rider to get wheelspin during the start of a race, which includes a liberal wipe-down of the plastic starting gate.

The way Adam Cianciarulo and Cooper Webb attacked the whoops proved to be the deciding factor of the 450 Main Event. Webb’s ability to go 4-4 through the rollers was considerably quicker than Cianciarulo’s attempts to go 3-3 and even skim, and every lap you could see the gap between them shrink in this part of the course.

1 for 1. Cooper Webb and Red Bull KTM had eyed San Diego as an important round of the season, as both parties felt that getting out of California in the top-five of the points and with a win would put them into a good place before the East Coast swing. And that’s exactly what Webb did during the Main Event. Keep your eyes out for the next episode of the Bell Helmets 2 For 2 video series, which is going to include insight from Webb and team figures Ian Harrison and Roger De Coster.

You don’t pull many tearoffs when you lead 20 laps of a 450 Main Event.

Can you tell that Blake Baggett prefers his helmet and goggles to fit extremely snug? Baggett runs things so tight that the Rheon discs of the FLY Racing Formula helmet and the facefoam of the SCOTT Prospect goggles leave visible imprints on his head that take a few minutes to fade away. We first noticed this last summer during the Nationals, but the stadium light in San Diego made it particularly obvious.

Much has been made about the rivalry Adam Cianciarulo and Cooper Webb had during their amateur youth, due because Webb took extra pleasure in besting Cianciarulo during the 250 portion of their career, so it was nice to see the two old foes share a few moments together on the podium after their on-track battle in the 450 Main Event.

See you on the East side…