January 04, 2006

Grant Langston is selling wolf tickets!

Langston racing issued an interesting press release yesterday (which you can find here at Racer X Online), with the headline “Langston shoots for Grand Slam”. In it, they list Grant’s considerable achievements in the world of MX: 125 World title, his AMA MX and SX championships, even his victories in the 2000 MXdN and his 2002 Prince of Bercy crown.

But what is a “Grand Slam”?

The press release goes on state that all “Langtown” needs to do is win the West 125 SX title in order to be the only rider in history to win every major 125 title. To which I say, “not so fast, Slick Rick…”

Now, I’ve never met Grant, but I hear he’s a nice fellow. I met his uncle at A1 last year, and he was very nice. I saw his father at Perris Raceway about 5 or 6 years ago, and he too seemed like a nice guy. So Grant is probably a good guy as well. And he is undeniably fast on the bike. But I have to admit that he’s not the best decision-maker in the sport. In fact, Grant has a history of making questionable decisions. Let’s review:

- While on the way to scoring KTM’s first ever supercross win, Grant decided to do a little showboating and crashed on the last lap.

- While practicing at Glen Helen one day, I don’t really know what happened, but somehow a woman he was passing crashed and got very hurt. I’m not saying it was his fault, and again, I don’t know the details, but the anecdote points to a possible bad decision.

- With the overall win already sewed up, he went for the second moto win at Hangtown last year and ended up badly tweaking his ankle and probably arguably killing his shot at a second AMA outdoor championship.

And now, Langston racing starts talking about possible Grand Slams. But the problem is that not only did Langston NOT win a 125 title last year, but the class does not even exist this year. Okay, sure, the AMA called the 250F class the “125” class in 2005, but Langston won the title on a 250F. My point being that he CANNOT claim a 125 grand slam with two of the titles being gathered on 250cc bikes. That just makes sense.

So good luck this season, Grant Langston. There is no doubt in my mind that you are a serious contender for another 250F title in supercross this year. But lose the crazy talk, okay? Your great achievements on the 125 are already well noted.

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