Super crowds for Supercross

Thursday, April 29, 1999 | 10:57 a.m.

Despite the ongoing renovation of Sam Boyd Stadium, more than 39,000 fans are expected to pack the facility Saturday night for the season finale of the PACE Supercross Series.

Although evidence of the construction at Sam Boyd will be evident, PACE Motor Sports officials would like to see a little more clutter.

"We enjoy our relationship with Sam Boyd Stadium but we wish the renovation would include another 100,000 seats," Pat Schutte, public relations manager for PACE Motor Sports, said.

"We sold it out last year with 39,227 people and I think the attendance this year with the renovation on the stadium is going to be very similar to that."

While Saturday's crowd for the Supercross event will represent one of only three sellouts on the 16-round stadium tour, Schutte said he is confident the sport easily could fill an arena in Las Vegas more than twice the size of Sam Boyd Stadium.

Although Supercross has caught on in Las Vegas, PACE wouldn't need to rely solely upon the support of the Las Vegas community to fill those seats; an estimated 60 percent of the crowd for this year's Supercross will come from Southern California and elsewhere around the country.

"We could fill one of those massive soccer stadiums, but (the fans) would be way away from the action, which makes Sam Boyd Stadium that much more intimate," Schutte said. "It's a very tight stadium compared to the (New Orleans) Superdome or (Pontiac) Silverdome."

Which is why, Schutte said, it is not likely the series would consider moving out to the massive 107,000-seat Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"I don't think it's really good for the fans when you stretch a track out like you have to do at a speedway and sell only one section of seats," Schutte said. "In order to give our race fans the best value for their dollar, PACE Motor Sports is going to continue to use the more intimate stadiums for Supercross."

But even at larger venues such as the domes in Pontiac, Atlanta and Seattle, the wildly popular Supercross series is playing to near-capacity crowds.

Earlier this season, PACE Supercross drew sellout crowds at Edison Field in Anaheim and the Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix, and attracted crowds in excess of 60,000 at the Seattle Kingdome, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta and the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan.

Since 1990, attendance figures for Supercross nearly doubled to a record 771,817 fans for 16 dates (an average of 48,239 per date) in 1998.

Clearly, this extreme sport that once attracted only dirt-bike enthusiasts and the curious has wheeled its way onto the national sports scene. Once relegated to cable network ESPN2, the PACE Supercross Series has been televised on network television (ABC) twice this year and received impressive ratings.

"The sport definitely is becoming more and more mainstream," Schutte said. "What I attribute Supercross' success to in the last couple of years is that we have always known that we were an extreme sport. But it hasn't been until the last couple of years that extreme and alternative sports have become more and more popular.

"There will always be fans of stick-and-ball sports but a lot of the younger generation now, they have so many alternative choices to select from with their athletics that sports like dirt-bike racing are becoming more and more commonplace."

Rider Doug Henry agreed.

"I think all the extreme sports like snowboarding and Rollerblading are getting more popular and I think motocross, Supercross, is the most extreme sport there is," Henry said. "I think as those sports take off, so does Supercross.

"People in general, I think, are trying to live on the edge just a little bit and this is a great way for them to do it (vicariously)."

Six-time Supercross champion Jeremy McGrath largely is credited with spurring the sport's rapid growth by dominating Supercross this decade.

McGrath clinched his record sixth title earlier this month and has an astonishing 60 victories since 1991.

"In my opinion, Jeremy McGrath is the main reason, from an athlete's standpoint, why Supercross is where it's at now," Schutte said. "He saved the sport in much the same way Michael Jordan saved the NBA. He literally is the greatest rider that there ever has been and he is our sport's icon.

"His popularity really transcends all the other extreme sports. He is the most visible and recognizable motorcycle racer on the planet. He has been so good for the sport that had it not been for him, I think we would still be in kind of a holding pattern as far as popularity."

Even McGrath admits to being surprised by the sport's success.

"I didn't really expect that it would grow so much or that I would be responsible for some of that," McGrath said. "It has taken on a whole new perspective. There are a lot of people who never were fans before who are totally into it.

"I remember back in '93, we had some fans but it wasn't like it is now."

Tickets for Saturday night's race sold out at the Thomas & Mack Center box office and at Ticketmaster locations earlier this month. Desert Yamaha in Las Vegas still has tickets for sale, but a spokesman said fewer than 800 remained as of Wednesday afternoon.