Long before the gates drop on the 2007 Amp’d Mobile World Supercross GP and Amp’d Mobile AMA Supercross series, the off-season arrives with more show and dough than your traditional American supercrosses. One of the races, the U.S. Open of Supercross, has been stirring up the middle season for a while. The other is the newborn of stadium racing with a name fit for a king: the Jeremy McGrath Invitational (JMI). Now, with the JMI in the racing calendar, the off-season is really turning on.Fueling the fire of off-season supercrosses is cash, and plenty of it. Promoters use big bucks to lure the nation’s top talent into putting on a show outside the championships. The U.S. Open has done just this awhile now. But the new JMI race stepped up huge this year with enough prize money to put dollar signs in the riders’ eyes, blinding them to the risk of injury, mechanical failures or other possible black eyes on yet-to-be-contested championship seasons.Kevin Windham walked away from the JMI with his biggest success story since beating Ricky Carmichael at Hangtown in 2003 to break RC’s 30-moto win streak. K-Dub won every moto, every heat and every heads-up battle on his CRF450R at the JMI to walk away with $185,000 and some confidence to boot. There was also another Honda head-turner in K-Dub’s teammate, Josh Grant, who met up with his bigger-biked brethren on the line for both bracket-race finals aboard his CRF250R…beating a lot of 450s on his way.Unfortunately, everything wasn’t as sweet as Honda’s success in the heads-up battles at the JMI. And the event, if it intends to become an annual affair, has some growing pains ahead. First and foremost, the race format will need to be solidified as it wasn’t always clear who, why and what was racing. The operational scoreboard on night two helped, but confusion in the stands remained. With time trials, head-to-head and main-event races going off in a smoother fashion, fans will be watching the action more and reaching for their race programs less.The Home Depot Center is a great venue for supercross, but it had a lot of seats that weren’t even close to being filled. If Ricky, Chad, Bubba and maybe Villopoto, Langston or Millsaps would’ve shown up to play, maybe there would have been more butts on numbered plastic. But isn’t it understandable why they sat it out? Reed was injured, Ricky is “retiring” and Bubba is paid to win another championship – off-season injuries aren’t an option. Speaking of which, MC himself sustained vertebrae fractures after a nasty rhythm-section get-off and missed out on his entire name-bearing event. He couldn’t even attend his own race as he was hospitalized for observation. Nick Wey, Mike Sleeter and Ryan Clark also suffered injuries that made them miss the event, some all-important supercross testing and, for some, the U.S. Open. The off-season, with its full gate of events, is still super risky.Not to be completely outdone in the originality department, the U.S. Open stepped up the creativity this year, too. First, there was more cash up for grabs via the new Toyota Trifecta bonus (which was really a sexfecta – no kidding!) that could add as much as $150,000 to a very dominating rider’s pocketbook if he could be perfect through six difficult challenges. The system involved winning both nights’ individual time trials, grabbing both nights’ holeshots and winning both nights’ main events. The Trifecta, while almost impossible in theory, was almost won by ber-motocross-mortal James Stewart as he only lost the Superpole (time trial) and holeshot on night two.Possibly feeling pressure from the off-the-wall JMI track, race organizers at the U.S. Open decided to mix it up and turn the track around for the second night of action. While limited by the tight confines of the MGM Grand’s Garden Arena, the reversed track made for a break in the monotony of the two-night event. Other than that, it was supercross as usual in Vegas with all the stars available.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the off-season is really just a little season on its own. These one-off races aren’t constrained to the strict format of the traditional AMA-style supercross events, and both of the major non-major races of 2006 sported some impressive innovations designed to put some spice in the SX mix. Here are our favorites:Two-Man Elimination-Style Racing: The first annual (we hope it’s annual) Jeremy McGrath Invitational (JMI) brought two-man elimination racing to American supercross. Influenced by European events, the two-lap races, arranged in a bracket-type elimination tournament separate from a main event, were often exciting, and with the rider in second desperately fighting to pass for the win, second place really was the first loser. Sure, some of the heads-up battles were a little boring, but they lasted less than two minutes, so there was little dull time for spectators to notice uncomfortable seats and nacho-induced indigestion.David Vuillemin’s Goon Riding: The U.S. Open also attempted to pump up its event with a Superpole time trial before the regular racing began. The top 10 riders kicked off each night by getting one solo, timed lap, with the fastest rider pocketing $10,000. However, even with the big cash on the line, the Superpole TT didnt deliver like the head-to-head eliminations at the JMI. Two riders on the track is a race, one is a parade lap. But David Vuillemin’s goon-riding alter ego did make an appearance on the second nights Superpole by completing a lap in perfect goonish form. He lost his shot at 10 grand, but earned some of the loudest applause of the night.Friggin’ Freestyle Ramps in the Friggin’ Track!: Jeremy McGrath took a different look at supercross by peering through some old-school glasses. “I don’t know if anyone remembers the movie RAD, but it was a BMX movie and on it they had this track called Helltrack. That’s what I wanted to build,” McGrath said at the prerace press conference. And build it he did. There’s nothing like a freestyle ramp (albeit five times as wide) in the middle of a supercross track to get the fans pumped up. The result was intense hang-time, with some of the sickest whips to ever grace the air above a racetrack. And if watching MC throw down Nac Nacs was ever getting old (which it wasnt), then it officially became new again as he hung them out longer than ever over the lofty ramp-to-dirt hits. It was like a supercross track on too much Red Bull.Cash and Lots of It: A rider could win more purse money in one weekend than in an entire successful regular season of racing. The riders go to the gate at these races with a lot of motivation.Hidden Start with Cool Strobe Lights: The JMI featured a hidden start that would launch riders with a background of rock-and-roll and pulsing strobe lights. Starts are exciting enough, but this added some much-welcomed freshness to the old gate-dropping routine.James Stewart Winning [the U.S. Open]: James has a lot of wins in his future, though not so many more with RC pushing him the whole time. Stewart gave RC the send-off he didn’t want at the 2006 U.S. Open – two second places. Bubba was perfect on the weekend with a 1-1 in the two-night double-header. Snake eyes never paid so well in Vegas.Kevin Windham’s Whips: It’s really a beautiful thing when you throw K-Dub 30 feet in the air and let him hang out for a while. Look at the photos from the JMI, then look at them again -that’s all we have to say about that.RC’s Race Car: It’s official – thanks to Ricky Carmichael, the number four will always be fast. If RC ever gets to dance in the big show of NASCAR, we might actually watch it. OK, were lying. We’ll be riding on Sunday still. But we’ll definitely buy an RC flag for our motor home, RC stickers for our trucks and RC beer cozies…whenever they start selling them.Freestyle Shows: Yes, we totally enjoyed watching a freestyle show again at the JMI. Did you know Travis Pastrana lands on his front tire almost every time he does a Superman seat grab backflip? Yeah, it scares us just thinking about it, too. Everyone threw down huge tricks, and it made the downtime between the JMI race events entertaining.Rain at the U.S. Open: With a downpour on Friday night, the outside portion of the U.S. Open course became infused with the wet stuff, adding yet another variable to the challenging event. Hmm, 25 laps, 25 tear offs…easy enough, right?Toyota Trifecta: James Stewart almost does the impossible. Not by nearly sweeping all of the events, but by almost going home with all of Vegas’ money.The Movie RAD: We sort of said this already, but since McGrath gave props to the coolest BMX movie ever made as his inspiration to build his Invitational’s track, we thought it was worth mentioning again. I wonder if I still have the soundtrack on cassette. Man, I love that “Send Me An Angel” song.Some of the changes at these unique events worked and some didn’t. But, for sure, it’s the races outside the big championship series that have the freedom and motivation to bring new ideas to the sport. Will we see anything like this at a standard supercross anytime soon? Who knows, but it’d be cool to watch!For more race coverage on unique events and current reports on the Amp’d Mobile AMA Supercross and World Supercross GP events, check back here at www.dirtrider.com.