Yesterday, Feld Entertainment announced a change in the racing format for 2017 Monster Energy AMA Supercross. To sum it up, all races in the Supercross program will now mimic the timed format used in the outdoor Motocross series. That means all heat races, semifinal races, last chance qualifiers and main events will be time-based instead of lap-based.

Here’s how it will work. The clock will start at the drop of the gate. The 250 class will get 15 minutes plus one lap while the 450s will get 20 minutes plus one lap. That means that when the clock strikes 0:00, the race leader will finish the partial lap and embark on the final lap of the race.

Feld’s Senior Director of Operations, Dave Prater, hopes “this change will bring the fitness element more into play and provide more excitement for our fans.”

This change definitely plays into the strengths of past champions like Ryan Dungey and Ken Roczen, who place a huge emphasis on fitness and endurance. We’ve already seen the difference this makes when riders transition to the Outdoors season, and now we’ll get to see the impact it has on the stadium races. This should make for an interesting, and hopefully more exciting, season of Supercross. We’ll have to wait and see with the season opener on January 7th in Anaheim.

This story was based on an official release by Feld Entertainment. Click here for the original article.