By Billy Rainford

Happy Family Day, everyone. I’m a little behind schedule this week, as we’ve got a ton of stuff planned for content this week and everything seems to be happening at once this morning.

So, what did you think about the 2007 Orlando replica track on Saturday night? I think it’s a great idea to bring some nostalgia to the sport. It gave Supercross two ways to promote the race and series for the weekend.

With the amount of rain they received earlier in the day, I wasn’t sure they were going to be able to keep the in a raceable condition, but they did a great job. They even managed to keep control of the transitions which I thought were going to be a big problem.

They tossed a couple curve balls at us, with the addition of Rutledge Wood as the on track reporter instead of Daniel Blair. I recognized him from another time they’d brought him in but I don’t know him from the NASCAR scene. It’s not a race series I follow.

In any case, it certainly brought out the opinions of the fans at home. It was crazy to scroll social media feeds and read what people were thinking about the broadcast. Everyone seemed to have an idea on how they could improve it.

I, myself, found the broadcast lacking something. It seemed to be lacking the structure of a play-by-play person, for me. In my opinion, Leigh Diffey should be carrying the show and keeping everyone informed on what’s actually happening on the track and then throwing to Ricky Carmichael for the colour commentary pieces of insight on the action Leigh introduces. That’s what I felt was lacking on Saturday, anyway.

The racing was happening and they were either showing things happening that they didn’t have enough information to explain or they were missing things that were happening and showing things that didn’t need to be on the screen. Let’s chalk it up to an off night.

In their defence, they’re just looking at monitors and calling action from what they’re seeing on it, so it falls on the shoulders of the director and other behind-the-scenes people to make sure we’re seeing the things we’re supposed to be seeing.

Hopefully, they learn from what was lacking this past week and we head into the start of the 250 West series this weekend with a stronger program.

Normally, I’m actually at the races and I don’t see the broadcast at all, so this season is a little different being at home and yelling at the screen like everyone else.

And as far as the Race Day Live coverage goes, I think we all agree that we’re tuning in to watch an entire day of qualifying because we are already super fans of the sport. We crave details on what the riders are going through and would appreciate a little more in depth analysis and coverage of that.

Let’s see if they take some of the constructive criticism from this past Saturday and make a few improvements this week. It’s not my intent to “pile on,” it’s just that it seemed to be what everyone has been talking about, so I wanted to give my $.02.

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, here are the highlight videos:

So, now the 250 East riders get a long break until Salt Lake City on April 24th. With the number of top riders out with injury, this time off will be great and we should see a rejuvenated field when we get their.

When the 250 West kicks off this Saturday, we’ll have some more Canadian connections to keep an eye on. We’ve got a few podcasts scheduled this week, so be sure to subscribe to our podcasting channels on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and now Spotify to be notified when those go up.

Here’s the podcast interview we did with #551 Guillaume St Cyr this morning. The east is on a long break now, but he was going to try to line up in the 450 class on his 250 at Orlando #2 and then Daytona, but that crash on Saturday resulted in a fractured right wrist, so he won’t be lining up anymore this season.

When the 250 East starts this week, watch for these teams and their Canadian content to give you an extra reason to cheer them on:

PRMX

Club MX

Manluk Racing

Team Solitaire

Give those links a click to follow them on Instagram.

Casey Keast will also be lining up once the series makes it over to Arlington, Texas, starting on March 13th, so we’ll watch for that.

OK, I’ve run so far behind today that we’ll have to end it here…late. Have a great week, and be sure to check in with us as we have a busy schedule of interviews to do this week, including an update with Jess Pettis later today.

I’ll leave you with this Monday Mud Mess: