The 2015 Red Bull Straight Rhythm will take place this upcoming weekend at Fairplex in Pomona, California, home of the LA County Fair. Last year, Yoshimura/Suzuki’s James Stewart took the win in the finals against BTO/KTM’s Justin Brayton, and part of the hype surrounding this year’s event is the return of JS7 to competition after sitting out the 2015 Supercross and Motocross series due to a suspension levied by the FIM for a failed drug test. We expect JS7 to get right after reclaiming his spot as one of the best riders in the world.
Along with JS7 making his return, two more top Red Bull backed riders will be making their debut appearance at the event. Last year, RCH/Soaring Eagle/Suzuki’s Ken Roczen and Red Bull/KTM’s Ryan Dungey both sat out the event in 2014 feeling under prepared with their new bikes—Roczen had switched to Suzuki and Dungey had a completely new KTM for ’15. This year, though, both have a year on their new machines and will be looking to dethrone JS7 and claim the title of fastest man on the planet in a straight line.
The full list of riders in the Open Class is: James Stewart, Ryan Dungey, Andrew Short, Ken Roczen, Marvin Musquin, Justin Brayton, Vince Friese, Kyle Chisholm, Dean Wilson, Thomas Ramette, Kyle Partridge, Josh Hansen, Mike Alessi, Ivan Tedesco, Brett Metcalfe and Nick Wey.
Other than the three riders we’ve already talked about, there are three other riders we think have an outside chance of stealing the glory away from JS7. Red Bull/KTM’s Marvin Musquin and Dean Wilson, along with Brayton have all shown they can go blazing fast in a mile long rhythm section. Last year, Musquin dominated the 250cc class at the event and will be making the move up to the big bike for ’15. Wilson and Brayton also looked fast in ’14 at the event with Brayton beating Wilson in the semi-final before losing to Stewart in the final.
We expect all the top guys to have a Straight Rhythm track built somewhere to practice on and that they will be more than ready to do battle next weekend. Below we listed who we think the possible winners of the event are. Give us your vote below.
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