USA Insider No.143: The Underdogs

Welcome to our weekly web-exclusive column, Transmoto’s USA Insider presented by Ipone. Penned each week by our man on the ground, Transmoto’s US Correspondent, Jason Weigandt, the USA Insider presents the story-behind-the-stories of the AMA supercross and motocross scene.

Picking favourites in the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship is easy — most just look down the list of past champions for their guide. When racing starts this weekend with the return (after a five-year absence) to Glen Helen Raceway, high expectations will be there for Ryan Dungey and James Stewart in the 450 class, and Blake Baggett and Dean Wilson in the 250s, because these riders have already won those titles before. Chad Reed would be an obvious favourite, too, if he wasn’t coming off of major shoulder work just a few months ago.

So I’m going to head the other direction and name two other contenders that are coming at you like a dark horse. Do they use that term in Oz?

Look out for Jason Anderson in the 250s. Anderson is fresh off of the 250 West Coast Supercross Championship, but I believe he’s even better outdoors. Anderson is not a technician. Nailing perfect backsides and dissecting rhythm lanes like a surgeon is not his forte. He made his style work for supercross, but at heart he’s a hang-it-off-the-back charger who just pins it everywhere. Anderson is coached by the legendary Jeff Ward, and Wardy told me that when they returned to the SX tracks after a few weeks of outdoor testing in April, they actually had to slow him down a bit because he was hitting everything so fast. Anderson does not like to be slowed by the natural rhythm of supercross obstacles. He wants to pin it, scrub it, overjump it and keep going faster. He also loves his KTM much more than the Suzuki he raced last year, especially the motor, which is key outdoors. And that outdoor season last year was sneaky good. He was consistently the sixth-best guy in the series all year with occasional runs into the top five — only the departed Roczen and Tomac, and returnees Marvin Musquin, Baggett and Zach Osborne were better. But Anderson has improved greatly in 2014 and I think he will improve enough to be right in the thick of it with those guys, Wilson and Christophe Pourcel. I would not at all be shocked to see him holding the #1 plate when this is all over.

Sneaky good is also the way to describe Trey Canard’s 2013 National Motocross campaign. Trey’s been hurt so much that many will say, “I just hope he can make it through 24 motos,” but a glance at last year’s standings shows that’s not a problem — he made it through all 24 last year without a hitch. No injuries, no missed races outdoors. He did struggle at the beginning of the season in what was his first full year in the 450 class outdoors, but as he learned to set his Honda up better, he got faster and faster. By the end of the year, he could at least see Dungey at the end of the races. Now the word from the SoCal test tracks is that Trey is flying. Testing doesn’t always mean racing, but we know what Canard’s capable of when things start rolling his way. Right now, they’re doing just that.