2022 WSX British GP | Kickstart Recap & Gallery

The weekend formally began with a joint press conference of SX Global Managing Director Adam Bailey and FIM Board Member Hakan Leeman, when the two shared their outlook on the newly formed series, a potential popularity that could rival MotoGP, and from the FIM’s side, the desire to have a promoter who takes the sport to a global stage. Bailey stated that the 2023 calendar should be released in November, with the United States being one potential location.

What’d you think of the onboard footage? The bike-mounted cameras are a take on MotoGP’s setup, with high-definition rigs pointed at the front-rider-rear, but whoops and rhythm lanes don’t shoot the same as smooth asphalt. Keep in mind, SX Global’s hope is to make new fans, and since skying a triple is the thing that catches everyone’s attention, you have to try to show what it’s like. The Lyon Video crew tried something similar at Budds Creek, so there’s a chance onboard could be used in the US SX-MX soon.

Derek Drake looked quick on the MDK Motorsports KTM. A 48.152 put him at the top of the SX2 time sheets on Friday afternoon and made him a rider to watch during Saturday’s practice sessions. Drake’s tires picked up a few nails during the three-race Final events, an unexpected issue that resulted in 20-11-22 finishes and a twentieth place overall rank.

HM45. When Colt Nichols backed out of WSX a week ahead of the opening round for a fill-in ride at Team Honda HRC, Rick Ware Racing asked Henry Miller if he wanted to make the last-minute trip. How last minute? Miller’s gear bag was filled with FXR gear from the summer’s Pro Motocross championship and his first laps on the Twisted Development-enzo Racing YZ250F were during Friday morning practice. All things considered, like Miller’s recent time on a KTM 450 SX-F and limited prep, the 14-17-15 finishes proved he was consistent.

Cole Seely on a CRF250R. Just seems right. The MotoConcepts rider’s return to competition had its share of ups and downs, from some of the fastest laps of the weekend (he earned a championship point for a 47.040 in Final Two) to small mistakes and simple crashes, but he made it through with no big problems and a second-place finish in the night’s last race. Watching Seely and Justin Bogle link up for practice laps on Friday was one of the highlights of the weekend.

Justin Brayton’s career winddown will include the two-round WSX pilot tour and the four-round Australian SX championship. The four-time SX1 champion will race on Friday night in Melbourne for the Australian series and Saturday night for the WSX, and will stay down under until the next week’s AUS event in Adelaide. The last leg of the series is in late November (Newcastle on the 26th) and early December (Wagga Wagga on the 3rd).

Gas and muffler packing in the stadium light.

Did you watch the 20-minute RAW video from Friday? It’s cool to see how guys learned new lines or sized up hits during the long practice session, especially when they put it all together for a flying lap like the ones we caught of Tomac, Wilson, Brayton, and Roczen.

CR Nac-Nac? Always cool.

Tough Boxes. The cardboard cubes seemed to be the best option for track markers in this situation, as they were the same size as the pre-printed covers and were much easier to store (flat) and move (a stack at a time) than the standard (dense and heavy) foam cushions would be. And no, they can’t hold up to a rider’s weight; Ken Roczen figured that out for himself on Friday morning.

There was a bail-out option for the ramp jump. Luckily, we don’t remember seeing any rider use it during Saturday’s race.

Fredrik Noren was another rider who got the call to be ready for Cardiff, as he filled in for Brandon Hartranft at Pipes Motorsports Group/Twisted Tea Suzuki. When we asked Noren how the bike was, he reminded us that he’s an experienced RM-Z rider, thanks to his time at JGRMX. Freddie said the PMG bike is better handling and less rigid than the JGR machine was, but that he preferred the power of the JGR engine.

Eli Tomac’s pit crew had only the essential people: his father John in the stands, mechanic Josh on the track, and suspension tuner Ricki in the pits. Gilmour had one request for the promoters: a can of compressed nitrogen to tune the KYB forks to Tomac’s liking.

Martin Davalos has really stepped into his role as Team Manager for the Honda Genuine Honda/FirePower Honda squad. The former racer has a hand in everything from the training and the bike testing to the engine building and tuning, like this post-ride plug-in to Wilson Todd’s ignition.

Dilan Schwartz, SX rider. Despite being SoCal born and raised, Schwartz isn’t immediately known for his prowess on technical tracks, but it’s something he’s working on. A two-ride deal to ride the SX2 class with Pipes Motorsports Group will give Schwartz plenty of track time.

We didn’t know if Phil Nicoletti would be racing WSX or not. Another crash and broken arm late in the summer put the FXR Moto/CLUBMX rider in a difficult position, but he recovered from it quickly enough to be on the SX2 starting line in Wales. Nicoletti said that the laps took a toll on his still sore upper arm, but he was back on the practice track a few days after returning to South Carolina.

The riders who were able to land off the big triple, cut through the flat part of the turn, and charge toward the first whoop had a big advantage on the rest of the pack. Guys like Tomac, Brayton, and Savatgy started trying it on Friday afternoon, so when it became Saturday’s race line, they knew where and when to hit brake-turn-pivot-stand-accelerate.

When we think of SX-only riders, it might be time to add Ryan Breece’s name to the list. A deal with Rick Ware Racing to ride a YZ450F in WSX will help the Idaho racer get ready for the 2023 AMA SX season, where he’s expected to be a contender for top-fifteen finishers and top privateer status.

Crowd total? We were told about 37,000 fans filled Principality Stadium, and after a lap in the upper bowls, can say that they were indeed packed with a wide variety of spectators. There were the typical MX enthusiasts with logoed shirts and hats, families that had never seen something like this in person, lads out for the start of their night, and even fans of intermission act AJ Tracey that had no idea what Supercross was before they got there.

The WSX paddock. Every team is given an exact-size space to work in, color matched to their bikes and branded with banners and logos, plus access to a separate shop area that has vices, grinders, welders, compressors, and tools for them to work with.

Wouldn’t be an overseas race without dancing girls…

Ken Roczen mentioned the size of the berms being one of the biggest differences between AMA SX and WSX, saying that they weren’t as tall or banked in Cardiff as what they’ve come to expect. We didn’t think much of it at first, but after watching more laps, we noticed the way it changed the riding (less momentum from ripping the high line, less cutting down in the middle of the curve).

One thing we really liked was the use of music in the downtime between laps on the track instead of announcers talking into the microphone.

Max Anstie had top billing in the SX2 Class. The Honda Genuine Honda rider is as local as it gets, with his mom’s house an hour away from the stadium’s front gates, and evem he had some experience racing under the lights thanks to a Maxxis Tires British SX at the venue in the early 2000s (won the 65cc Class). A Heat Race victory and win in Final 2 were the highlights of Anstie’s British GP.

The Bogle-Oldenburg Heat Race battle was something. An excellent launch out of the gate and strong early laps put Bogle in the lead, but Oldenburg worked to close the gap and drew near in the closing moments. Bogle got the win, as his MDK Motorsports bike hit the line 0.415 seconds ahead of Oldenburg’s MotoConcepts machine.

Thomas Ramette might have been our surprise of the weekend. The French rider has plenty of SX experience, thanks to the country’s love of the discipline, and while he’s not as well-known as Soubeyras-Tixier-Aranda-Izoird, that could change with more weekends like what he had in Wales. The GSM Yamaha rider put himself in the mix with fast laps in Timed Qualifying, didn’t waver to the American pack, and finished tenth overall in the WSX division.

It sucked to see Josh Grant hit the deck in his Heat Race. The MDK Motorsports rider suffered a mechanical issue (snapped chain) as he went from tabletop to tabletop, and the resulting slam was enough to knock him out. JG got himself to the side of the track after a few tense moments, then walked out of the stadium on his own. It’s unclear if the two weeks between races will be enough for him to recover or if MDK will field a replacement rider.

NILS Honda might be a new team, but the people who are part of it are very well-known. The rider roster includes former MX2 world champion Jordi Tixier and AMA SX Main Event rider Angelo Pelligrini on the CRF450Rs, French SX2 rider Thomas Do and Italian Lorenzo Camporese on the CRF250Rs, and Giacomo Gariboldi and Livia Lancelot in management roles.

Props to Vince Friese for his effort over the weekend. The MotoConcepts rider was on it from the first time he hit the track on Friday to the last laps of Saturday’s SuperFinal, an effort that earned him a third-place finish and a legit chance at the championship. Results aside, we saw Friese go for jumps or lines that only a few others tried, that he didn’t back down from Roczen-Tomac, and kept every move “above the belt,” if you know what we mean.

Hate to see it.

It took a while for Chad Reed to get up and off the track, mostly from the pain knocked his shoulder out of place caused. We’d heard how much prep CR had put into this two-race ride, something he had to make clear was not a comeback and were hopeful a few years of rest would help get over some of the injuries that saddled him late in his career. Reed’s already undergone surgery to repair the damage.

Little different, yeah.

What’d teams take with them to the starting line for the three rushed Main Events? CDR Yamaha had staples like spare helmets, gloves, goggles, wheels, and water next to the tunnel…

While others, like Honda Genuine Honda and CLUBMX, took complete bikes, just in case. We’re interested to see what gets left behind or is added come Australia.

Shane McElrath earned his SX2 overall win through passes and consistency. The RWR rider had some struggles getting out of the gate and into the lead group in all three races (gate pick might be to blame), but got by thirteen riders over the course of twenty-two laps for 4-3-5 finishes.

Dylan Walsh was one of the weekend’s wild cards, as the British-born Kiwi ripped laps on a REVO/Seven/Kawasaki in the SX2 class. Walsh was actually the first person we saw when we got to Cardiff on Thursday night and from talking to the crowd, is very popular in the UK. We too grimaced in pain at the shot of his right arm being run over but can confirm that it was merely scratched, and not broken or displaced.

Is this the end for Chris Blose? Maybe, maybe not. The 2022 season was supposed to be the Arizona racer’s farewell, but after a good experience with the BUD Racing Kawasaki team in France and a runner-up result in Wales, he admitted that there could be more in his future. Blose will be one of the guys we keep an eye on in Melbourne, as the former AUS SX2 champion knows the three-race format and is only one point back of leader Shane McElrath.

It was very cool to hear the American national anthem played when all of the lights, except for the ones on the podium, went out in the stadium. Hard to think of three riders that would have enjoyed that moment more, too.

Add “podium mood lighting” to the things we liked in WSX list.

Admittedly, when we heard that AJ Tracey would be the entertainment at the British GP, we had no idea who he was. Turns out that he’s one of the UK’s biggest hip-hop artists, has a following of 1.7 million on Instagram, and is coming off a global tour of packed shows and appearances. Musical guests like Tracey, plus Peking Duk (Australian electronica duo) and Bliss n Eso (Australian hip-hop trio), are a path that what SX Global hopes will lead new fans to Supercross.

Can you name every rider in the WSX startling line up?

Justin Starling had a hell of a weekend in Wales. A last-minute replacement for Marshal Weltin (hurt his knee playing baseketball), Starling took Friday to get used to the RM-Z (he is familiar with Suzukis from a time in Germany), got landed on in his Heat Race (got up unscathed), and got back on track for a nineteenth-place finish.

Eli Tomac didn’t breeze his way to three wins in the final; he had to push and pass his way around guys like Friese, Brayton, Roczen, and Soubeyras in the rushed races, something that he admitted was wearing on him in the longer SuperFinal. Tomac will race the Paris Supercross on this YZ450F in November while squeezing in an initial test session on the 2023 and then a winter boot camp.

Four front-runners within twenty feet of each other. Isn’t that what everyone wants?

We heard theories about the dirt all weekend, including rumors of a last-minute change in suppliers, but we didn’t think there was anything wrong with the British clay (aside from the nails). Hard pack, either due to the surrounding area or the prep that was done to keep it intact through the weekend, might have been the best thing for this race because it didn’t turn into a rutted and technical warzone, which would have been tough for guys with little SX prep.

Team Honda HRC flying mechanic Jordan Troxell to Wales so that he could work on Ken Roczen’s Honda Genuine Honda, a bike built by the team with no support from HRC, is any interesting development in the team-rider dynamic. Troxell immersed himself in with the HGH squad, wearing the pit shirt and working with the group to fix pit area issues on Thursday, while Roczen commented that the Factory Connection suspension gave him a different sort of feeling on the CRF.

Was round one of WSX what we thought it’d be? Yeah, almost exactly so. A past trip to the AUS-X Open in 2019 gave us an idea of what the SX Global team is aiming for and capable of, and they hit those marks with their first event in Wales. Yes, there were things that need to be improved, most of them fan-facing, but a week off, a return home to Australia, and familiar surroundings of Marvel Stadium should give them a chance to sort it out.