Thunder Valley "This-Week" Predictions Review
6/8/2016
With the news of Ryan Dungey's injury, these predictions will look quite different for a month or two.
But for now, how did the "This-Week" predictions do for MX outdoors in Week 3 at Thunder Valley? Pretty good in the 450's, with 4 of the top 5 correct, the exception being Jason Anderson and his DNF:
Of the Top 20, 10 picks were within 2 spots, and all but 5 were within 3 spots (and 3 of those 5 were Anderson, Marvin Musquin, and Phil Nicoletti, who had DNF's, for what it's worth). Josh Grant and Cole Seely did better than expected -- both have had repeated success in 2016 that's outpaced their preseason predictions.
Matt Bisceglia was the only rider outside of the predicted Top 20 to make an appearance--finishing 8th--he was predicted at #25, but he has no previous 450 data to rely on, making his prediction very uncertain. That said, we expect Bisceglia to regress toward the middle or back of the pack, since he was the 10th-best rider in the 250 class last year and around 20th the two years prior to that. But who knows, maybe he's miraculously improved when riding a 450, and he's very young so making a dramatic leap forward around age 20 isn't unprecedented.
As for the 450's Location Adjustment, there were 2, one for Ken Roczen and one for Trey Canard. Roczen was expected to earn 3 more points at Thunder Valley than his prediction before the track adjustment, and he earned 5 more than predicted (earned 50 vs prediction of 45). Canard was expected to earn 4 more points than his prediction before the track adjustment, and he earned 6 more than predicted (earned 35 vs prediction of 29). So, both adjustments pointed in the right direction with results that tracked pretty closely.
250MX class
Leading up to this week, the predictions for the lower class have not been as good as the predictions for the 450's, and the same was true for Thunder Valley. Crashes from Adam Cianciarulo, Aaron Plessinger, and Jesse Nelson threw their results off considerably. But a wreck from Alex Martin (not his fault) didn't keep him from grossly outperforming his prediction. Overall, there were only 2 exact picks and there were 8 within 2 spots:
The gold star of the day for the 250 predictions was Zach Osborne finishing exactly as predicted, advice that Mr. Matthes didn't manage to quite follow.
The 250 class had one major Track Adjustment, for the aforementioned Zach Osborne -- he was expected to finish 11 (!) points better at Thunder Valley than his regular prediction. The adjustment seemed correct as he finished 9 points better than his original prediction (earned 33 vs 24 predicted).
With a week off from racing, we'll see who looks to be #1 once Pro Motocross returns at High Point.
Posted by: SagehenMacGyver47 ::: As always – Feedback welcomed
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