It was a beautiful Friday in Morgantown—cool breeze, blue skies, great weekend forecast. Who knew mother nature could be so cruel? The problem is that this is the weekend we usually have the Steel City National, but due to some schedule changes on the AMA Toyota Motocross circuit, the race got moved ahead a week. It rained on and off for nine straight days, wiping out amateur day and a lot of the track changes we had planned at Steel City.

Freestone Raceway should be ready to go tomorrow. photo: John Ayers

Now it’s gorgeous, and we are on a jet plane headed for Texas. Here’s hoping that the Texas motocross fans—seeing their first Lone Star National since 1988—get much better weather than we did last week.

But while the weather wreaked havoc on the crowd—it took a real commitment to even get parked on the side of the valley Steel City rests in—the racing was downright excellent. Starting with Austin Stroupe’s amazing run to second in the first moto, with an even more amazing Ryan Villopoto almost passing him at the end after Stroupe clipped his front wheel off the start and caused a chain reaction pileup, to the frantic three-way in both 450 motos between Grant Langston, Mike Alessi and Kevin Windham, it was an amazing weekend inside the banners.

Austin Stroupe made quite a first impression at Steel City. photo: Carl Stone

With Tim Ferry having a terrible time getting out of the first turn (again) and Andrew Short not having podium speed, Langston and Yamaha jumped at the chance to get a long overdue win. It was Yamaha’s first AMA Motocross triumph going all the way back to the time Ferry won at Glen Helen when he was riding for Big Blue (no, Chad Reed never won an overall outdoors other than his one 125 win back at High Point ’02 when James Stewart’s KX125 blew up).

Langston did have “a moment” out there with the resurgent Windham that caused a little controversy. In case you missed it on the Racer X Motocross Show on Motocross.com, GL got some wheelspin after splashing through a puddle before a big double and floated over almost on top of Windham in mid-air. When they landed, Windham went off the track (he was on the outside) while Windham kept going straight off into the infield, then jumped back on through the banners ahead of Langston and waited for him. Then he shook his index finger “no” not once but twice at Grant (who would later apologize and K-Dub would accept). Anyway, I made a mistake on the webcast and said I thought it was the middle finger, which it wasn’t. For that I am sorry, and I also apologize to Kevin and his team.

How close is that?! photo: Trevor Hawk

Langston would fall, lose the spot again, get back up, and have to go by Windham again, but by then Alessi was gone with KTM’s first moto win in the premier class of AMA Toyota Motocross.

The second moto, I really think Alessi made a mistake in staying behind Windham too long. He’s still feeling the pressure from the mistakes he made at Glen Helen two years ago with Ivan Tedesco, and I think he was a little trigger-shy. Either way, Langston came through, took off and got that overall win. Now four guys—Langston, Short, Ferry and Alessi—are within 10 points of each other with four motos left. A lot of people suddenly don’t miss Ricky Carmichael as much!

And it turns out there was some truth to the rumor. While James Stewart finally gave up the ghost and submitted himself for knee surgery, Carmichael really was thinking about jetting up late Saturday night after his car race and sneaking out into Sunday morning practice—they even tech’d his bike—but then the car race got rained out, delayed to Sunday, and then finally wiped out all together.

Mike Alessi got KTM its first AMA Motocross win in the premier class ever—that goes all the way back to 1972! photo: Carl Stone

So how did RC spend his off-day? Listening to the Racer X Webcast on Motocross.com! Carmichael texted up to myself and Jeff Stanton in the press box a couple of times, mostly with jokes about him being the “world’s greatest has-been of all time” but then he got serious when his friend and pupil Ben Townley was having trouble in the second moto. I couldn’t repeat what RC’s message was on the air, but I will tell you that BT101 was in for a long week down in the 850.

With Stewart out and Reed enjoying his summer vacation, RC did announce that he’s doing the Rockstar U.S. Open after all, which I was really glad to hear. I don’t think I was alone in finding it a little odd that ESPN kept making a big deal about the X Games being his last race when it wasn’t even close to that. He raced Millville already, he’s doing the Motocross of Nations at Budds Creek and also the Paris-Bercy SX. Everyone thought his last Live Nation race was that brilliant Orlando race back in March where he and Bubba battled like warriors, then this X Games race popped up, he signed up, and they played it up for all it was worth. Now he’s going to do one more in Vegas, one more for Live Nation, and it just seems more appropriate to me. (And no, he’s not coming to Texas. Carmichael is on his way to the Bahamas for wife Ursula’s 30^th birthday.)

Back to Steel City: Austin Stroupe’s first-moto effort—in his first pro race—was astonishing. Sure, a lot of guys were left in his wake in the first turn, including RV1, BT101, and fellow rookies Trey Canard and Nico Izzi—but he rode the wheels off the #981.

Nico Izzi (341) was in the pileup with a quarter of the rest of the field. photo: Carl Stone

Was it the best debut ever? His fourth overall matches Damon Bradshaw’s fourth back at Millville ’88, and his second in the first moto matches Stewart’s second at Anaheim 1 in ’02 (his first pro race). That’s some pretty good company to be in!

Lost in Stroupe’s solid day (2-12 for fourth) was the impressive effort of Nico Izzi, who overcame that first-turn crash to race all the way back up to seventh, and Trey Canard, who came from deep in the pack for fifth in the second moto. At one point, all five SoBe No Fear/Samsung Honda riders were together—Josh Grant, Billy Laninovich, Jake Weimer, Ryan Sipes and Canard—and the kid out-motored them all and rode up through the pack in his first visit to Steel City. All three of these kids are good—really, really good!

And BBMX/DNA’s Kyle Keylon put on quite a performance in the 450 class for a solid set of motos. Keylon got off to a rocky pro start at Millville with a first-lap crash in the whoops, but he’s been digging, clawing, and scratching for positions ever since. He is the best prospect yet that the BBMX team has signed.

So now Villopoto is back in the lead, and with Ryan Dungey breaking his collarbone in practice on Saturday, and Brett Metcalfe and Hepler not quite as fast as #1 and #101, Townley has his work cut out for himself these last four motos. Like the 450 class, this one’s going down to the wire!

Ryan Villopoto is the new Lites’ point leader. Again! photo: Carl Stone

Check out moto on TV this weekend and next:

September 2 MX - Steel City 8:30 PM EST

September 4 MX Lites - Steel City 3:00 PM EST

September 9 MX - Freestone 6:00 PM EST

September 11 MX Lites - Freestone 3:00 PM EST

And don’t forget to watch tomorrow night’s Racer X Motocross Show on Motocross.com for a glimpse at practice from the brand new Freestone Raceway. We will also have the live Racer X Webcast on Sunday, which starts at 1 p.m. local time (2 p.m. EDT … I think). And then of course Monday morning’s Wrap-Up Show will have all of the highlights from the weekend.

Also, did you check out this Photo Report from Sunday's WMA season finale?

I mentioned that there was a lot of talk about RC maybe showing up after all—some of the contenders were buzzing about it—but when he didn’t, it led Tony Alessi to place this note in Alessi Weekly:

“I don’t know quite how to say this, but the four riders (Mike, Langston, Ferry, Short), I am sure know and realize that Ricky Carmichael is letting us all race to win this title; if Ricky Carmichael chose to finish this series (and I think he could have) he would be the clear cut winner. I respect someone like that who keeps his word (and does what he says he’s going to do), with the lure and temptation of a championship, money ,and other things. It says a lot about the character of the man.”

You may have heard us mention it on Monday’s Racer X Motocross Show on Motocross.com, but Gavin Gracyk is sick of people thinking he is running a cheater bike. To prove it, he will make a $5,000 bet with anyone who wants to protest him. Protest at Freestone or Glen Helen, and if you win the protest, Gavin will donate $5,000 to charity. Lose the protest and you donate $5,000. Gavin says he doesn’t even have $5,000 to donate, but he says that doesn’t matter since he won’t lose. He has picked his charities, though: $2,500 to research for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and $2,500 to Road to Recovery.

The privateer of the year. photo: Steve Bruhn

Out on the infield, I happened to bring up Gracyk’s options to a team manager, and he told me that the word in the pits was that he might be cheating, and that the rumor worried him about how good the kid really was—even as Gracyk came blasting down a hill into a ruthless section of ruts, holding the throttle on longer than any of the title contenders in the 450 class. It was loud out there, we were both too busy to have the conversation I wish I would have had with him, which should have gone something like this:

“Um, look way over there—all the way across the track to the outside of the first turn. See that black Cycra E-Z Up? Gavin’s dad is underneath it, watching his boy race for probably the last time. Mr. Gracyk has Lou Gehrig’s disease, which might the cruelest disease of all. It’s a degenerative nerve disorder which slowly robs a person of their ability to move their muscles. Their motor skills go first, then their ability to walk goes away, then to stand. Eventually, they can’t even breathe…. Another shitty part of the whole process is the fact that the mind remains sharp, until it too is finally overcome….

“Mr. Gracyk is in the late stages of the irreversible, incurable disease. That’s why he was in a motorized wheelchair, with a portable respirator breathing for him. He just wanted to see Gavin race one last time. Maybe that’s why he gave it every thing he had to try to get those holeshots and ride his ass off all day long.”

But I didn’t, and now I really wish I had.

Here’s a good place to turn it over to TFS right here with a Silly Season update. Unbelievably, Gracyk’s name is not in here:

Broc got Yamaha their first Lites moto win since, what, Chad Reed in ’02? photo: Carl Stone

Red Bull Honda

Davi Millsaps, Andrew Short, Ben Townley, Ivan Tedesco

James Stewart, Tim Ferry

David Vuillemin, Mike Alessi, Nico Izzi, Ryan Dungey

Grant Langston, Broc Hepler, Josh Hill

Chad Reed, Nathan Ramsey

Jake Weimer, Josh Grant, Daniel Reardon, Trey Canard in the Lites class, and Travis Preston (likely SX-only) and nothing signed yet but very likely with Kevin Windham

Trey Canard looked great in the second moto. photo: Carl Stone

Monster/Pro Circuit Kawasaki

Ryan Villopoto, Brett Metcalfe, Christophe Pourcel, Austin Stroupe

Nick Wey 450, Martin Davalos 250F. Maybe one other 450 guy

Justin Brayton, Ryan Sipes, Matt Goerke, Billy Laninovich.

Jason Lawrence, Ryan Morais, possibly Tommy Hahn, and one more

Matt Lemoine, Broc Tickle, Jake Moss, Wil Hahn

Josh Summey, Josh Hansen

Chris Gosselaar (SX and Supermoto), one more

Sean Collier, Heath Voss, plus “Hog Haven”