On Sunday afternoon, my big brother Tim crashed on a downhill at Steel City and broke his neck. He suffered a fracture of C6 and C7, with an exploded disk in between. Fortunately, he did not suffer any spinal cord damage. He was immediately taken by ambulance to UPMC in Pittsburgh, and on Wednesday the doctors operated on him, taking a bone from his hip and using it to fuse the two injured disks. On behalf of his wife, Jessica, my mother, Rita, and our whole family, thanks for all of the kind words, notes, and flowers that everyone sent. There were even a few inquiries as to whether or not he needed money for what will be astronomical hospital bills. Fortunately again, he had full insurance coverage, so that is not necessary.

Get well soon, Tim. photo: Zak Lowery

What was necessary, but sadly absent, was a Leatt-Brace, or an EVS Race Collar, or an Alpinestars Neck Brace…. My brother was not wearing one, and he came within four millimeters of a catastrophic injury, according to the doctors. His wife, Jessica, a lifelong racer, and his son, Tanner, both have and wear Leatts, but for some reason Tim had not gotten around to getting one for himself. He has one now—I had a new one shipped here (thanks to Robert Roon for that) so I could take it to the hospital and hand it to him.

One of the first people who sent me a note about Tim was David Bailey. If you haven’t watched David’s message about the necessity of neck braces that was posted on VitalMX.com last year, or need a reminder, here it is.

My brother’s reminder will be the scar across his throat where the doctors had to go in to work on his broken neck. He will never go out on a track again without his neck brace.

Next, before we get into a whole bunch of interesting events from last weekend, I would like to squash the rumor that started on DMXS Radio when David Bailey inadvertently mentioned something about the outdoor nationals going to a one-moto format in 2009. That is absolutely not true; it was just one of many, many things thrown out there in discussions about the future of the series, live TV, etc. Rest assured the AMA Toyota Motocross Championship will be running two motos in 2009, and likely for a long time to come.

Boost Mobile girls photo: Carlos Aguirre

Last Sunday evening, after I heard Chad Reed’s championship speech at Planet Hollywood, I could only think of doing one thing: finding the man so I could shake his hand. If you were there to hear it, you probably know exactly what I mean. He spoke about the sacrifices he had to make to get up there, the cost of what it meant to him and his family, the difficulties of leaving your home with a couple of suitcases and a dream, and how difficult it is to hear others go up to the podium and thank their parents when his are always on the other side of the world. It was unscripted, deeply personal and straight from his heart, something we don’t always get to see of Chad. Needless to say, I was absolutely impressed.

I think it’s safe to say that Jeff Ward was not there. The man is a bona fide legend in our sport, and I have always looked up to him, but I was surprised and disappointed when I read his comments to Ping in their interview. Wardy let Chad have it because for a variety of reasons, from his SX-only deal to the fact that he still represents Australia at the MXoN, whereas Ward, who was born in Scotland, was always proud to represent the USA.… What’s not fair about that is the fact that Ward left Scotland at age 3 with his family, whereas Reed left home at 18, away from his family. That is a HUGE difference.

And then there was the Jack Daniel’s bottle thing. Apparently someone snapped a photo of Chad taking a sip off the bottle on Sunday night and posted it online. Ward, a parent of a promising young racer who looks up to Chad, found “that crap” disappointing. I respect Jeff’s opinions as a parent and as Chad’s fellow SX champion, but I think it’s unfair to take umbrage with a 26-year-old man who is celebrating the fact that he just won the biggest championship in our sport, with some huge physical and personal turmoil along the way. It was Las Vegas, it was a banquet serving free beverages, his parents were there for the first time in who knows when, and he sure as hell wasn’t the only one celebrating….

Maybe Jeff was thinking of some of the other things going on out there—there have been more arrests, fights, and sudden absences this season than I can ever remember—but to single out Chad Reed just wasn’t fair. Chad did not deserve that, not for wanting to go home in the summer, not for riding for Australia and not for celebrating his victory.

In closing on this matter, I wish Jeff had been there to hear Chad’s speech to get a feel for exactly what he’s been through. He has said from Day One that he was here to be the supercross champion, not the outdoor champion, and if he wants to go home the rest of the year, I say more power to him. Jeremy McGrath did it and the sport survived. The sport will survive this too.

My colleague Steve Cox felt the same way when he read Ward’s comments: “It sounds like this was partially pointed at some other party animals on the circuit, not necessarily Reed, but I just wanted to clear something up: First off, I don’t think there’s a problem when a 26-year-old grown man is drinking a perfectly legal product in celebration of his championship. While it’s true that he is a role model to some, I don’t think that he should be more of a role model to children than the children’s parents. I used to idolize John Wayne as a kid, and in his movies he smoked, he drank, and he killed people. That didn’t make me smoke, drink, or kill people.

“That’s the first point. But the second, and most important, one is that it wasn’t his idea. Live Nation’s Todd Jendro, one of the hardest-working men in the entire sport, brings Jack to every banquet as a tradition, and he has people drink from the bottle to end the season. I think that puts it in quite a bit different perspective. Ultimately, as I said, though, he’s an adult. He can drink if he wants to. Children can’t. I respect Wardy for who he is and everything he’s done, and honestly he’s a really great guy, but I just think he was being a little too unreasonable with our new AMA Supercross Champion.”

We’ll have more from Steve Cox in a minute. One last thing about Reed and those sacrifices and all: KJS posted this story about Chad and his family from an Australian newspaper on the Mototalk message board. Take a moment over the weekend and read it and you’ll get a feel from just some of the drama he’s been through. I know it’s not like he’s been over in Iraq or working in the coal mine or whatever, but it’s still a lot of sacrifice as far as family goes…

Okay, here’s the rest of Steve Cox’s weekly input:

Rockstar Energy Drink was well represented photo: Carlos