Honda Joins The Party At SmarTop/MotoConcepts Racing

With supercross less than a month away, teams are making their final preparations for Anaheim. MotoConcepts Racing invited us out to check out their team, which is the biggest they’ve ever had with five riders – three in the 450 class (Mike Alessi, Vince Friese, and Justin Brayton) and two riding 250’s, one on each coast (Kyle Chisholm West, and Cameron Mcadoo East). MotoConcepts Racing in the past has had a unique setup as far as race teams go. They had no factory support and ran white plastics and called their bike an MCR 450 as to not say what make the bike was. Now, for 2017, they have support from Honda but how much support is unclear.

Brayton is one of the new additions to the MCR Team and will be the lone rider on a 2017 bike. The reason for this is, as explained by Mike Genova, Team Owner, since he is a new rider the MCR team would have to build him a bike from scratch anyway, so it might as well be the 2017 CRF450R since they just became available for purchase. Alessi and Friese have been riding 2016 Honda CRF450Rs during the off season and have those bikes dialed in and comfortable. Genova said that if Alessi and Friese decide, as the season gets underway, that they are at a disadvantage, they would try the 2017s. But, to use his own words, Genova says that with racing it is, “More the Indian than the arrow.”