Cycle News Staff | April 23, 2020
There has been speculation of a possible plan to resume the 2020 Monster Energy Supercross series in May or June rather than later this Fall. Although there has not been any formal announcement of these plans from Feld Motorsports, the series promoters, they have been having ongoing discussions with the teams and partners about alternatives. Steve Matthes from www.pulmmx.com reported via Twitter on April 17 that the proposed plan would be for “…SX to start mid-May, end early June, all 7 races in Glendale, AZ”. It is expected that this would be with no fans in attendance and extensive testing of all riders and support staff to ensure that the Coronavirus would not be spread.
Cooper Webb added credibility to the rumors of a possible resumption of Monster Energy Supercross in May or June.
Adding credibility to the reports, defending champion Cooper Webb commented on his Instagram today about the possible resumption of Supercross. In short, he wants to go racing but apparently some teams and riders have said that May or June is too soon. Below is what Webb posted:
As some of you know and have heard there’s an opportunity to go racing May 15th. I’ve been asked my opinion and have been on the phone talking to multiple different people about it the last few weeks. As of April 17th it sounded like a go but as of yesterday it is becoming questionable because some teams and riders feel there isn’t enough time to get ready. I’m blessed to be on @ktmusa where we are always #readytorace but this had me thinking a bit.
Feld is prepared to bring back employees, and work with the riders and teams to have very limited amount of people at the venue and in the stadium. They will have multiple health care workers to check every single person’s temperature and symptoms every time we come into stadium. As well, we will be the first sport back to action while practicing social distancing with some adjustments to the racing and schedule. Unfortunately, no fans will be allowed at stadium.
I know myself and almost every person in our industry has had some pay deduction or even in extremes, they have been laid off until we are back racing. I feel as professional supercross racers it’s our jobs to be ready to race and do our jobs whenever called upon. As of April 17th and possibly even prior, riders got told of the possibility of racing May 15 which made it fair to everyone to know that in four weeks we could be back racing. With bikes ready, supercross settings we already have, the 26 weeks of SX we’ve already done this year (off-season preparation) with 3-4 days of riding each of those weeks ( appx 95-105 days of riding supercross total) I feel like we should do our SX/Mx community a favor and try to be ready to race. With that being said, it gives us an opportunity to grow our sport, give people jobs back, and give all you fans a chance to see us race on TV while we do everything possible to stay safe, clean and do the proper testing to insure we don’t spread this virus.
A bit of a rant but that’s how I feel what do you guy think? Would you like to see us race @supercrosslive soon?
So far, none of the other top riders have publicly commented on the possible return to racing in May or June.
Cooper Webb’s comments about the possible resumption of Supercross in May or June via Instagram.
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