Good points all Lew.
Agreed on #1, better layout and more truly challenging for the riders. I didn't catch #2 but that is interesting. The dirt they use in Seattle is more rocky. Webb looked to be riding conservatively, and rightly so. He's doing an expert job of minimizing damage when he isn't the fastest. Where Tomac's top speed has gone, I'm not sure.
On #3, I was a little caught up at the time in the practical sense of Jorgenson having been wronged by being bumped off the track in a transfer spot battle, and it looked in real time like he'd done his best to get back on without truly gaining an advantage. I think this is the gut reaction that Carmichael had, it just didn't look right. After reading more opinions about how rules should simply be called as written and consistently, I'm somewhat persuaded by those arguments. Problem is there has been a lot of judgment and inconsistency in AMA calls in this series.
Regarding #4 and #5, my comparison was meant to indicate that both Rogers carry a lot of weight, and to me there seems to be more tentativeness and deliberation when an officiating issue involves one of their competitors. John Gallagher and Decoster and KTM officials were consulting throughout the last several laps of the race and after.
The Musquin call looked very obvious to me. Maybe the KTM team were arguing the case for him in private and they wanted to sort it out, but I don't get what that case would have even been. In his post-race interview, Musquin acted like he'd already been told he was toast. Some other riders jumped too? Well, penalize them. It appears that after the clips have been gone over thoroughly, other riders like Savagty and Webb resumed jumping after passing the flag and Reed, and possibly Roczen did as well. Nobody else jumped before and through the flag as Marvin did. So the penalty to him and not others seems appropriate.
However, there was much confusion regarding the penalty, including among teams and the NBC broadcast. Dungey losing that win in 2016 on a similar (but not as blatant) incident is reasonably fresh in the minds of those who follow the sport. I certainly had no idea they changed this circumstance to a points only penalty since, and I don't agree with the move. Just like the flawed logic NASCAR used for decades about the fans "deserving to know who won when they leave the track", I'm not sure what they think they're accomplishing with this. It appears to me that doing it this way ticks off more fans than the straightforward approach. They called their rule appropriately, but the rule change was dumb.
Having said all that, I do not believe Roczen would have ever caught and passed Musquin under any circumstance. He can say he backed off, but I think Musquin is a bit better right now. Roczen was much stronger than he's been for at least a month though.
On the injury front, Reed is done for the season. I'm glad to see him say season for now, because I hope he isn't done period. He's made a good showing this year and justified the factory seat. Brayton's status is more unclear. He said he is okay but may have a torn MCL / ACL. Colt Nichols is okay and will be back next week, but his championship hope is gone. It will be interesting to see if Ferrandis can put pressure on Cianciarulo. I'm becoming a fan of Cianciarulo. He seems humble and like he has a good head on his shoulders, and he's always a class act even when he gets beat.