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With the announcement by Feld Motor Sports that the 2016 Monster Energy Sponsored AMA Supercross event (part of the overall FIM World Championship) will be a seventeen city supercross tour comprising many different states and cities in the lineup, there is a lot of buzz around this tour. For motocross fans everywhere around the world, this is a massive event that everyone is going to want to tune into pretty closely. Being able to visit one of these events as they are scheduled is going to be an awesome time for anyone who is able to attend.
Featuring a wide range of competitors and different supercross competitions within the overall span of the Monster Energy Supercross Series, there are different event classes for all different avenues in professional supercross. In order to provide supercross fans everywhere with some vital information concerning the scheduling and competitor information for the 2016 Monster Supercross Series, some of these details will now be shared here.
Event Scheduling: Summary and Overview
To date, there have been many different events along the timeline of the 2016 Monster Supercross Series beginning with the January 9th, 2016 event at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California. This event went well, and it marked the beginning of this tour in California where the next few events would also take place. On January 16th, 2016 at Petco Park in San Diego, California the Monster Energy Supercross competitors took to the track to compete in the second event in this long awaited series.
Keeping the first four events in the tour inside of California allowed for the generation of significant PR inertia for the tour, and created a lot of positive hype for the tour moving forward. The third even on the tour was back again at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, again drawing a significant crowd to the event. Finishing the four-event streak in California was event number five on the tour. This 2016 Monster Energy Supercross Series event took place at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Featuring events in multiple engine classes, primarily 250cc and 450cc levels, the event in Glendale was a great success.
On February 13th, 2016 the Monster Energy Supercross tour riders were back again at the Petco Park in San Diego, California. Petco Park is a favorite stop on the 2016 Monster Energy Supercross Series tour, given that there are multiple tour stops at this location in 2016. Petco Park offers the competitors a great facility to ride on, while providing spectators with an equally well-accommodating facility for enjoying the supercross competitions. Next on February 20th the Monster Supercross riders were competing at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, which marked the beginning of the tour’s eastern movement into some of its more east coast, located venue destinations.
After the Texas tour stop on February 20th, the Monster Energy Supercross tour moved farther east to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. To continue the southern U.S. leg of the tour, the next event after the Georgia Dome was held at Daytona International Speedway at Daytona Beach, Florida. This was an especially well-attended event, partially because race and supercross fans tend to enjoy the hype around the Daytona International Speedway.
The Daytona event marked the end of the southern leg of the trip, and marked the point at which the 2016 Monster Energy Supercross Series moved far north into Canada for the March 12th event held at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada. After the Rogers Centre, the tour stayed up in the north for the next event held at Ford Field in Detroit, which helped to get some great exposure for the tour in the U.S. north. Next stop on tour was on April 2nd at Levi’s Stadium, this time back in California again. Santa Clara would host this event, once again with supercross competitors riding hard on the west coast. After this brief revisit to the west coast, the Monster Supercross Series hit the Midwest on April 9th at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The next event was in the Midwest again at Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Missouri, and this marked the last Midwest event on the 2016 Monster Supercross Series. Of course Monster wouldn’t let this massive supercross tour miss having stops in the northeast, and the first northeastern tour stop was on April 23rd at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. With one more northeastern tour stop on April 30th, the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey was the last one before the tour moved back toward the west coast. On May 7th, the Monster Supercross Series hit the desert with its tour stop at the Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Competitor Information: 250cc Class Supercross
Beginning with the 250cc class Monster Energy Pro Circuit riders, Chris Alldredge is riding for Kawasaki out of Powell Butte, OR. He is riding a Kawasaki KX250F, as are the rest of the Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki riders in the 250cc class. Another one of the Kawasaki Monster Energy Pro Circuit riders in the 250cc class events is Joey Savatgy riding out of Thomasville, GA. One more Kawasaki Team rider is Tyler Bowers who is riding out of Corona, CA.
Riding for the GEICO Honda team out of Brooksville, FL is RJ Hampshire, and he is riding a Honda CRF 250 series dirt bike. The GEICO Honda team is a large competition sector within the 2016 Monster Supercross Series tour, and they are all riding their own variation of the Honda CRF 250 class bike. The next GEICO rider is Christian Craig, who happens to also be riding out of Corona, CA. Craig is a California native who is well accustomed to the west coast riding venues that dominate the tour schedule.
On the GEICO team there are three additional highlight riders in the 250cc class, and these riders are Jordon Smith out of Belmont, NC, Malcolm Stewart from Haines City, Florida, and James Decotis of Peabody, MA. While all of the riding teams are equipped with high quality dirt bikes and equipment, the GEICO Honda team is especially focused on the performance of their finely tuned Honda CRF 250 series motorcycles.
Next in the 250cc riding class is the Yamaha Rockstar team, starting with Cooper Webb from Newport, NC. Cooper Webb’s number is 1W and he is riding a Yamaha YZ250F. The Yamaha team has been doing well in the 2016 Monster Supercross Series, and they have several other riders in the 250cc class event series. Another Yamaha Rockstar team rider is Jeremy Martin. Riding with the number 6, Martin is from Millville, MN and frequently rides a YZ250F series bike in competitions. Two additional Yamaha team riders are Aaron Plessinger and Alex Martin, from Hamilton, OH and Millville, MN respectively. Both riding the YZ250F, all of the Yamaha Rockstar competitors are well equipped for the Monster tour series.
Competitor Information: 450cc Class Supercross
With regard to the 450cc class riders and events in the 2016 Monster Supercross Series, there aren’t as many team focused riders but rather more single sponsor riders. In 450cc events, there are many more riders who have multiple sponsors as well, starting with #1 450cc rider Ryan Dungey from Clemont, FL. Dungey is riding for multiple sponsors; KTM, Red Bull, Motorex, and Dunlop being his primaries. He is riding a beautiful KTM 450 SX-F Factory Edit dirt bike, which is a unique bike compared to some of the more uniform team bikes.
The number three rider coming out of Cortez, CO is named Eli Tomac, and he is another multiple sponsor 450cc class rider. Sponsored by Monster Energy and Kawasaki, Tomac is riding the Kawasaki KX 450F. One of the 450cc riders who is sponsored by several different more local sponsors is Kevin Weisbruch riding out of Murrieta, CA. Weisbruch is riding the Kawasaki KX 450F as well, and is sponsored by Escondido Cycle Center, Tresino’s Fresh Italian, Factory Backing, and other local companies. He is a great example of one of the 2016 Monster Supercross riders who is on a much more grassroots sponsorship platform.
Another such rider is Brett Hottel out of Corona, CA who also has several local business sponsors such as S&S Grading and Paving, A&B Castillo, and more. Hottel is riding a Yamaha YZ450F series bike. An additional noteworthy rider in the 450cc class events is Jason Anderson riding out of Rio Rancho, NM. He is noteworthy because he is the only rider who is using a Husqvarna built 450cc dirt bike; his Husqvarna FC450 is a rare build in the Monster Supercross series. The series still has a ways to go, so there will be many more exciting developments to come in the approaching months.
