MAY 13, 2008
By Steve Matthes
Photos by Simon Cudby
A few months ago, my second favorite sport, hockey, had their annual trade deadline. It’s quite an exciting sport that I wish more than 245 Americans would watch. Anyways, back to the trade deadline! It’s where Stanley Cup hopefuls try to pick up that missing player that will put them over the top or where the bottom feeders of the league sell off their best players to get young guys and draft picks. They do this so that they could be a “buyer” one year instead of a “seller.”
What if we had this ability in pro SX/MX? Wouldn’t that be the greatest thing for us fans? Here’s how I think it might go….
Rockstar/Makita Suzuki trades Ryan Dungey and Nico Izzi to Monster Energy Pro Circuit for Ryan Villopoto
Let’s face it, RV is gone next year to a factory team and will probably be one of the very best in the 450 class as well. Mitch Payton is going to lose him no matter what, so getting two top Lites class riders in return is a great trade. Suzuki gets to be a player again in the big boys class and has a rider with huge potential. Izzi and Dungey (and Dragons) get to be on the premier Lites team in the sport. A good trade for all!
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Millsaps for Alessi: wow, what a trade that would be! |
MDK KTM trades Justin Brayton and Nick Wey to Monster Energy Kawasaki for Tim Ferry
KTM needs results now and Ferry can get them immediate results. Wey is struggling on the orange team for a variety of reasons and Brayton has shown that his career is on the upswing. Wey has podiums in the 450’s and is still pretty young; Brayton is a big guy that has 450 written all over him. Ferry only has a couple years left at the top but KTM needs to show something soon. Good trade for KTM now, but not so good when Wey and Brayton are still doing well four years from now.
Butler Brothers MX trades Kyle Keylon and Matt Boni to Babbitts Monster Kawasaki AX Team for Brock Sellards and Kelly Smith
This trade makes sense for a few reasons; Keylon and Boni need some seasoning and need to get better at banging bars; BBMX gets immediate results and main event appearances with Smith and Sellards, two cagey veterans who’ve been around the block. Keylon and Boni have potential; going to AX will help with their confidence as they’ll both be frontrunners. Smith and Sellards will provide laughs and results to BBMX.
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| A bucket of used Pro Circuit pipes would be a fair trade for [insert underachieving rider's name here]. |
Yamaha trades Grant Langston to Makita/Rockstar Suzuki for David Vuillemin and Eli Tomac
Yamaha let Mike Alessi go; they let Ryan Villopoto go; now they get one of the best up and coming riders in Tomac. He can win them some amateur titles before he hits the pro scene and will be a tuning fork rider for a long time. DV hasn’t been the same rider since he left the blue team, maybe one last gasp for the Cobra? Kind of like when Wendel Clark came back to the Toronto Maple Leafs and started tearing up the NHL again, he will be reborn. Suzuki gets multi-time champion Langston to team up with RV and have one of the best 450 teams out there. Grant has proven that he can adapt to a new bike quickly while winning four titles on three different brands.
Yamaha of Troy trades Tyler Bowers and Jason Lawrence to Honda for Ben Townley
BT101 is going to be great one day, but maybe he moved to the 450’s a little early? So with this trade he gets to go back to the Lites class and win two, three, maybe four titles and cement his legacy before moving to 450’s full time. J-Law is going to be right behind BT in all classes and who knows how Bowers will do? One thing for sure is Tyler needs to be on a 450 as soon as he gets enough points, perhaps if Honda doesn’t have the room, they can send Bowers to Hart and Huntington Honda so he can be teamed up with another giant, Troy Adams. They would win the WWE tag team match for sure.
Isn’t that fun? Send me your trades at matthes@racerxcanada.com and we’ll post them up!
