Vital MX Pit Bits: San Diego

With San Diego comes the traditional Military Appreciation round of the Monster Energy Supercross series, so let's do a tour of a whole bunch of bikes that have a nod (or better) to our military folks on land, sea, and space.

Monster Energy Kawasaki went the traditional route for Eli Tomac and Adam Cianciarulo, with a camo makeover.

Since his brother is in the Air Force, you'll usually find Eli paying tribute to that branch with a helmet treatment.

Fox did some patriotic chromed goggles for Adam Cianciarulo and (we think) Ken Roczen.

Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki knocked it out of the park with their design. The steel plate look on the graphics had a bunch of other nice touches, including the Remove Before Flight exhaust plug.

Sponsor integration? Check.

The rivet look was awesome.

Caution!

Scott did an early intro for one of their 2021 goggles for the weekend, and Bell (via AP Designs) did camo to match the gear.

Here's the Fox gear that the Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki guys were wearing.

Even with their Canadian roots, they PRMX guys played along.

Getting anything substation approved through the layers of corporate red tape is tough for the Red Bull KTM crew, but this year's design was cool, yet subtle, and honored all the branches of the military. There was a custom Renthal pad added later that matched the black/white digital camo.

The Rocky Mountain ATV-MC/KTM/WPS crew always does a good job, including a seat ID stripe embroidered with Blake's name.

Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/KTM went more patriotic than military, with some new gear, and this helmet graphic.

Normally Martin Davalos's Team Tedder bike is pretty close to all black, and the addition of the brown plastic was pretty cool.

The Rockstar Energy Racing Husqvarna squad doesn't usually play along, but added some camo to their graphics this year. Well, either that, or it's ebola under a microscope.

Zach Osborne and Michael Mosiman (shown here) are rocking this Fly combo for the weekend.

The AJE Gas Monkey Energy Huskys looked really cool, even if Auberson's front fender is missing the full graphic kit here.

The JMC Husqvarnas also took advantage of the tan Acerbis plastics.

We linked up with Michael Leib for the weekend, and he put together an awesome package of graphics and gear for the weekend.

Michael Leib. He's still selling gear/bike graphic combos for upcoming rounds, so hit him up if you're looking to have your company represented on track

More digital camo, this time for Monster Energy/Yamaha Factory Racing.

Justin Barcia getting seriously flat on press day.

The red plate moved over to Dylan Ferrandis after Oakland, and it looked good on his Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha. The camo here matched perfectly with the team's Thor gear.

Dylan likes a stiffer thumb flange on the throttle side, so his mechanic, Alex, cuts one from a left side grip and glues it onto the throttle grip. That way he gets less drag from the flange onto the throttle housing.

Now there's something you don't see every day. Rekluse did up some camo graphics on their clutch cover for the weekend.

The wire between the pad and the plate? That's to ensure that the throttle cables don't get stuck under the pad.

Hmm...the flag in the wind thing that some teams do for the U.S. flag doesn't work quite the same way for the French flag. Now we're not sure which country Dylan is from.

Kyle Chisholm went a different route for his bike and gear, giving a nod to the Air Force's Space Force.

We're guessing that his helmet will also get plenty of attention.

The Nuclear Blast/Rockwell Yamaha of Robbie Wageman also gave some top billing to Ravencrest Tactical.

Robbie Wageman.

Benny Bloss is back in action after sitting out Oakland due to a concussion he got in Glendale. When your first words to arriving medical staff are, "Where am I?" it usually means you're done for the day. It was cool to see him give a nod to the Wounded Warrior Project.

The Smartop MotoConcepts Racing guys also went a more patriotic route on their bikes than their usual look.

Team Honda went two different directions for their riders, with an Army-inspired bike for Justin Brayton.

Cool details on JB's bike.

Justing runs his front brake lever really close to his grip, and he also has his throttle tube turned down so that it's extra-thin.

Sweet!

Ken Roczen's bike featured a Marines logo, and a different color scheme.

Oorah!

Here's the look that the GEICO Honda crew would have used...if they had any healthy riders. With both Jett Lawrence and Christian Craig on the sidelines, they opened up their rig to the public for tours.

They also took the chance to display their East coast bikes, since that series starts next weekend.

Who's looking forward to seeing Chase Sexton start defending his 250 East title next weekend?

The Penrite Honda guys (that's Luke Clout) had a couple of different graphic looks under the tent, though they opted for the one that's on Luke's bike.

Here's the B option on Mitchell Oldenburg's spare bike.

We can see all the necessary military appreciation bits, but what's hard to see is the gold glitter over the top of it. That's different.

We would've had a Goose and Maverick reunion in San Diego, but Justin Starling (Goose) sat this round out. Jerry Robin got to be Maverick.

FXR did up some custom gear for the FXR Chaparral Honda guys. They got it as close as possible to flight suit gray.

The JGRMX/Yoshimura/Suzuki Factory Racing guys opted for a Navy motif.

The H.E.P. Suzuki crew had a setup that went well with their Thor gear.

Kyle Cunningham checking on the hostages in their pit area.

How about a bunch of random goodies? We keep finding Mamba nuggets. This one's on the back of Justin Barcia's helmet. Our athletes definitely respected Kobe.

Whoa! How about that new 'do for Ken Roczen? We like that he takes chances on and off the track.

Hanging around on Fridays, we generally spot the TV crew meeting with one team or another. This week it was the Monster Energy Kawasaki riders.

Over at Monster Energy Kawasaki even the burritos come in team colors.

Josh Hansen did some laps during Friday's press day, so that Shift could get shots of this new limited edition gear in retro Padres colors. He looked as silky smooth as ever.

The helmet was cool, too.

Rolling three deep, it's the Smartop MotoConcepts Racing wrenching crew of Aaron Mrozek, Jason “Rango” Montoya, and Nick McCampbell.

Chad Reed had a very cool helmet painted up by AP designs that was an updated replica of the Charger design that he wore in San Diego in '09. But that wasn't all...

The boys at Fox did him up a custom set of gear that looked like a Charger uniform. We spotted Chad meeting with a bunch of Fox designers before heading out for the final practice.

Earlier this year we had a shot of a heavily-modified Honda Monkey that Yoshimura built up a while back. Since then, Showa went all out and built up a one-of-a-kind set of shocks for it that are extremely cool-looking.