Georgia first for Millsaps
By TMX Archives on 27th Feb 08
HONDA'S Davi Millsaps claimed his first premier class supercross win at Atlanta's cavernous Georgia Dome on Saturday night as the AMA Supercross Series headed east for the first time all season and threw up what was an eventful and controversial night's racing.
As championship leader Chad Reed crashed back down the field to a lowly, by his standards, sixth place on the night, after holding the early lead, local hero Millsaps inherited the lead in front of a huge 67,000 crowd and rode a strong, smart race to claim the win and fulfil the promise that he has shown in recent weeks.
With Reed failing to make the podium for the first time all season, Kevin Windham saw his opportunity to make up points on the championship leader with a solid second place and close the gap back down to 25 points on the Yamaha rider, while Andrew Short landed on the podium for the first time all season to make it a Honda sweep of the podium.
There was more Honda success in the opening salvo of the East Coast Lites championship too as rookie Torco Honda teamster, Trey Canard, obliterated the field to take a runaway win at his first attempt from the impressive MDK KTM duo of Martin Davalos and Ryan Sipes.
There was no such luck for defending AMA champ Ryan Villopoto though. The overwhelming series favourite looked a bit out of sorts during qualification after just a week on the bike following wrist surgery, but a small fall on a spine to slow riders turned into a big problem for Villopoto.
He hit the back of another rider and tipped off on the steep face and was hit fullbore in face and arms by Torco Honda's Josh Grant as he tried to recover his machine, sending him to the floor and very nasty looking incident.
Villopoto would call it a night after slowly remounting,
seriously denting his hopes of another title, while Grant recovered to seventh.