Such thrills are the stuff promoters' dreams are made of. The whole night, however, is a carefully orchestrated show and still not completely a sporting event. The NFL changes rules and hires cheer-leaders to make football more exciting, but the hype and showmanship of a motorsports event is unique.
At times, a night at the races seems vaguely reminiscent of watching the Harlem Globetrotters play. Part of the problem is institutional. Races are short and the program drags midway through the evening, as obscure riders who lost in the first qualifying heats struggle to make it into the main event. So the track announcer screams and promotors import a variety of sideshows to liven up the evening.
After the last semifinal race Saturday Doug Domokos, the Wheelie King, came show boating onto the track and bet track builder John Savitski $500 he could ride around it on one wheel. He did it but it was an awful lot like watching Meadow-lark Lemmon run around with a waterbucket full of confetti.
During a race any time spent in the air is lost, as the bike is merely floating, not moving ahead. So drivers try to stay on the ground as much as possible. Promoters, though, try to play up the sport's dangerous in-the-air element. The most exciting part of this course was a large jump called the catapult; Diet Coke gives the driver who jumps the farthest a $1000 bonus. The fans love it, but it reinforces the idea that motocross is a show and not a sport.
Spectators love the spills and thrills, but as one young fan said during the pre-race parade of Miss Toyota. Miss Yamaha and local disc jockey Charles Laquidera hamming it up. "Christ, I just wish they'd get on with it. Motocross fans image is almost as bad as that of the racers themselves Promoters insist it is as inaccurate.
When fans ran on the track at the end of the night. Maiern, the track announcer for the night, yelled. "Hey come on, we can't have that. If you want us to bring supercross back to Foxboro next year, we can't have that kind of behavior." Foxboro police said it was hard to compare the supercross crowd to a football crowd because it was much smaller, but they reported only one fight and a handful of minor incidents. An average football game may send upwards of 25 people to the police station. Clearly supercross has a long way to go if it is to capture the hearts of the populace.