Red Bull’s own James Stewart (right) came away with the win at the inaugural Red Bull Straight Rhythm. Photography by Steve Cox.
In order for Red Bull to put on an event, it seems as if there has to be something entirely new and different about it from the outset. They got that with the Straight Rhythm. Imagine an entire supercross track, but without any turns, and you get it.
Simple, yet entirely different.
Without turns, you can’t do multiple laps, so the Straight Rhythm was set up like a drag race: Head-to-head based on qualifying in a drag-racing-style bracket, where the first qualifier and second qualifier are on opposite sides of the bracket and end up facing the the guys who qualified at the tail end of the 16 racers who made up the field—1st place facing 16th, 2nd facing 15th, 3rd facing 14th, and so on.
The 450cc field can only loosely be called that, with the inclusion of Travis Pastrana on his RM-Z450-framed 500cc two-stroke (CR500R engine), and while logically a bike that puts out about the same horsepower as a good 450 four-stroke nowadays, but does so with a light-switch power curve (unlike a 450, which has a nice, broad power curve), wouldn’t seem to be competitive, but we are talking about Travis Pastrana.
Pastrana had a tall order with his opening race, facing off against Josh Hansen, and Pastrana did make a few mistakes on their first race. But each round was a best-two-of-three affair, and Pastrana came through in their second race to better Hansen, celebrating with a massive backflip over the finish line. In their final match, though, Pastrana came up just short and had to pack up his RM-Zilla after only one round. But, true to form, Pastrana was likely one of the most talked-about stories of the day.
Yoshimura Suzuki’s James Stewart faced Scott Champion, then Hansen, and then his brother Malcolm, who had the unofficial best lap of the day at the end of the day. The brothers were a remarkably even match, but James came out on top to move to the final against BTOSports.com KTM’s Justin Brayton, who had to eliminate Ryan Morais, Kyle Partridge, and then Dean Wilson to go into the final.
Malcolm Stewart ended up taking down Wilson in the bronze-medal match, and then top qualifier James Stewart bested Brayton for the inaugural win in the Red Bull Straight Rhythm.
Red Bull KTM’s Marvin Musquin topped Justin Hill for the 250-class win. Photography by Steve Cox
In the 250cc class, Red Bull KTM’s Marvin Musquin was the favorite going in, and he was also the top qualifier. Musquin took down Jarryd McNeil and Darryn Durham (in his debut ride for the TLD KTM team) on his way to the semi-final, where he met up with GEICO Honda’s Justin Bogle. Bogle just managed to eke his way by his amateur teammate Jordon Smith to face Musquin. Musquin was just able to beat Bogle, then moved onto the final against his new teammate Justin Hill, while Bogle went on to face Jessy Nelson (also from the TLD KTM team) in the bronze-medal race.
Nelson came on top in the battle for the bronze, and Musquin actually had a little easier time with Hill than he did with Bogle, as Hill was still recovering from Strep Throat and said he was so weak he was shaking on the start line.
And just like that, Red Bull snatched the wins in both classes at the inaugural Red Bull Straight Rhythm.
