LARRY BROOKS SPEAKS ABOUT JACKSONVILLE: I Am Blessed To Live In Interesting Times; Whether It Is The Dirt, The TV Crew Or The Competition

LARRY BROOKS SPEAKS
I AM BLESSED TO LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES;
Whether It Is The Dirt, The TV Crew Or The Competition

    After a great weekend of racing, I didn’t get any sleep on Saturday night after the race. I got back to my hotel room at 2 a.m. and had to wake up at 4 a.m. to catch my flight back home to California. Even though I had two hours to catch a few winks, I couldn’t shut my eyes because my mind was racing. We almost always get back to the hotel fairly late on the night of a race, but this time I had to stay later than normal because James had gotten into an altercation after the race. One of his competitors had grabbed him by the neck after the checkered flag. It was imperative that I stay late to review the post-race video with the AMA and FIM officials. Luckily, the TV camera was focused directly on James when the other rider rode up to him, grabbed him by his neck and started screaming at him (he was yelling something to the effect that he was going to take James out or maybe even kill him).

     Now that the FIM is involved, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. These kind of rulings often take a few days to sort themselves out. It is important to note that there is a rule in the book that says riders are not suppose to touch another rider or AMA official aggressively. Now that it has happened, the FIM has to make a formal ruling. The officials are at the race to enforce the rules, so let’s wait and see what happens (and hopefully see that it never happens again). Either way, it will not affect the 450 Supercross Championship series–just bring some sanity back to it.

     Emotions often run high during a race, but you should never lay your hands on another rider or make verbal threats. Racing close on the track is one thing, but taking those emotions off the track can result in a penalty.

     On the TV broadcast the incident was edited out. What the TV viewers saw on the broadcast was after the incident. I’m sure the promoters don’t want to show unsportsman-like conduct on television because they are working hard to bring the sport mainstream. None of us want it to become the World Wrestling Federation. Think about it for a second! How would history view the famous Bailey/Johnson race at Anaheim Stadium if one of them had thrown a fit and tried to assault the other after the checkered flag?

THE JACKSONVILLE DIRT

     The L&M San Manuel team had gone to the Jacksonville Supercross race very early. The mechanics left on Tuesday and I flew out on Wednesday because this was our teams’ turn to do the press day on Thursday. Both James and Kyle are from Florida, so they were able to drive to Jacksonville on Thursday morning before the 12 o’clock press conference.

     Jacksonville was getting slammed by a huge storm on Thursday and the riders were only able to do interviews with the local press (the track was unridable). The Jacksonville track had been built on Monday and the promoters had covered the track with plastic to protect it from the rain. Because of all this preparation, we had a great track for the race on Saturday night. This race turned out to have the best dirt that the riders have raced on this year.

     Dirt Wurx did a terrific job this weekend and I would like to give them a huge shout-out. Most of the time you only hear when the track is bad and, typically, no one says anything when the track is good. I’d like to say thanks to the Dirt Wurx guys (and please keep up the good work).

     In two weeks we are headed to a tough event in Seattle. The Dirt Wurx guys will have their work cut out for them, because the Seattle dirt isn’t very good and they have had rain in Washington over the past few years. They worked miracles in Jacksonville, so we can only hope that they make the same thing happen in Seattle.

THE TV ISSUE

     I spoke on an issue that I had with the television crew in my last column (when CBS wanted to do an interview with James on Saturday and didn’t let it happen because I wanted James to concentrate on his job). So, In Jacksonville, James did the interview that they had wanted to do in Toronto (and two others on top of the one we didn’t do at the last race). Michel Prince was the producer and was very understanding. In the end, television got all the interviews they needed for the TV coverage and I relearned that communication is the key for both our team and the TV crews. I should have communicated with the TV guys when they were doing the Friday interviews last week that they needed to get James then. They should have told me how much footage they needed so that we could have planned and coordinated better. I want to thank Michael Prince for being willing to work with our schedule.

     Next weekend is the only weekend we’ve had off this year. Maybe we all can catch up on a little bit of sleep, let the emotions cool down and get back to the job that we set out to do back in January.

{I do have one request. Please give me the respect to not copy, paste and post my comments all over the web. You can link to my column if you want, but don’t take my words, cut them up and distribute them as though you own them. Thank you for your consideration, Larry}.

Larry and Mike: L&M

(Editors note: Larry Brooks raced the AMA Nationals for 12 years. He was the National Minicycle Champion and 1986 AMA Rookie of the Year. Larry finished sixth (1986), eighth (1987) and sixth (1988) in the AMA 125 Nationals; fifth (1992), fourth (1992) and tenth (1994) in the 250 Nationals; won the Orlando, Pasadena and Los Angeles 125 West Supercrosses. Larry also was the two-time Mickey Thompson MTEG Ultracross Champion (on the Noleen/Sizzler/Yamaha team with Larry Ward and Mike Craig). After retiring from racing, Larry ran the Chaparral team, Bud Light team (with Jeremy McGrath), Factory KTM team (with Grant Langston) and the L&M team (with Chad Reed and now James Stewart).