Emig Breaks Down Steel City Tweet

Alli sat down with AMA Motocross Hall of Famer, Jeff Emig, to hear his opinion on Dungey taking the premier class championship title in Southwick, and to get his his take on things heading into the Steel City National this Saturday in Delmont, PA.

So the Championship for 450 was wrapped up after the first moto in Southwick, what are your thoughts?
Ryan Dungey is really on what you would call a grand slam of AMA racing. He’s consecutively won the titles on all four and I don’t think that anyone has ever done that. So it’s a pretty special year. Going back to what I said last week, he’s won so convincingly that its almost made it a bit routine, but doing what he’s done this year is anything but routine. It takes a huge commitment, determination and desire and all the hard work that goes behind the scenes to make those race days look easy, and Ryan has definitely shown that he’s put in the hard work and that he wants it more than anyone.

Dungey

With Dungey wrapping up the premier class title you look at the points battle between Andrew Short in second and Brett Metcalf in third as really being intense. You look back on the Southwick event and you have to think that it was the biggest heartbreak and the worst luck of the year for both riders really. With Metcalf running out of gas with a quarter of a lap to go while leading the first moto, which would have been his first National Motocross event moto win here in the US. He certainly deserved it. He has always been strong and always been fast but had never quite put it together for that moto win. I think mentally that it was as good as a win for him, but he did not take the checkered flag. I think that you’re going to see last week be a real confidence booster for him leading into the final two rounds.

Short

As far as Andrew Short is concerned, you look back on Southwick and even as horrible as it was for him, he still is really fortunate that A) He didn’t get hurt to where it’s going to keep him out of the series and B) That he only lost a slim amount of points after it was all said and done. It could have been a lot worse for sure.

Metcalfe and Dungey

So what can we look forward to at Steel City National?
The 450 class is really the battle for points. You got one rider, Andrew Short, who is riding on the factory team and then Metcalfe who’s riding on the support team. I think you know you got a little battle and bragging rights there. You know, second in points is better than third. I’m really impressed by both of these riders with how much effort these guys are putting out and its made for some really exciting racing on the AMA circuit to have these guys digging deep like this. And its not going to be easy as there is a host of talented riders that are really starting to gain some momentum.

Alessi

Like last week, the rides that Tommy Hahn had and Mike Alessi finally had a pretty good weekend, Kyle Chisholm, there is a host of guys out there plugging away. I still think that it will be hard for those guys to beat Dungey, but now that the Championship is over you never know, it might be a little easier. Dungey might be a little unfocused or relaxed where you can catch him off guard. You know, he’s already won the war maybe possibly he wouldn’t want to race that hard or risk taking it to the next level if he actually had too. But it’s my experience that once you’re on a roll like Ryan Dungey its pretty easy to continue and coast on in to the end of the series. So we’ll see.

Wharton, Rattray

What about the race in the 250 class?
The 250 class, you couldn’t ask for a better Championship here. You know in the past, when you have a two rider battle for the Championship its always been my thought that they raise the intensity level so high and they get focused on each other that they really tend to separate themselves from the other riders on the track.

Pourcel, Barcia

But in this season, 2010, that’s not happening because you got Rattray, Barcia, Wilson, Tomac and Wharton and these guys that all seem to be just as motivated for moto wins and overall wins as the two Championship contenders are for the title and that’s unique. Typically it doesn’t happen like that, so what’s great is you got our Championship contenders really having to ride their asses off to just get third or like Trey Canard last week had to really ride his butt off to just get the finish he got in the second moto.

Canard

Their teammates are not making it any easier for them, that’s for sure. The PC (Pro Circuit) guys are not pulling out of the way and letting Pourcel just have the points. So if Pourcel manages to hold on to his points and wins this Championship he will have had to really work for it not only battling Trey Canard and the Geico Power Sports Honda team but battling his own teammates as well.

Pourcel