AMA's thrill and Grant
By TMX Archives on 13th Sep 07
YAMAHA'S Grant Langston and Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Ryan Villopoto claimed the respective AMA Motocross Championship titles at a thrilling series showdown at the sensational Glen Helen Raceway, California, on Sunday.
For Langston, a cool, calculated 1-3 scorecard wasenough to net the tough South African the Motocross class overall onthe day from Mike Alessi and second moto runaway winner Kevin Windham,and award him the crown to go alongside his World 125cc, AMA 125cc, andEast and West coast supercross titles.
Villopoto, meanwhile, made it two Motocross Litestitles in as many seasons after a titanic season-long duel withteam-mate Ben Townley.
Locked together in the points standings for overhalf the season, a series of blistering late performances fromVillopoto saw him edge clear and 1-2 finishes was enough to hand himthe title once again at Glen Helen, although he did lose out on theoverall on the day to Townley who swept the final moto of the season insome style.
Mathematically Langston, Honda's Andrew Short,Kawasaki's Time Ferry and Alessi were all capable of leaving Glen Helenwith the AMA number one plate tucked into their kit-bag, separated byjust 17 points, but realistically the title was Langston's to lose.
Only eight points might have separated him andShort in the tables, but the Yamaha man was the rider carrying all themomentum and he effectively sewed the title up with a superb first motoride.
Alessi grabbed the early advantage on the factoryKTM and put the hammer down to comfortably lead Windham, Short, Ferryand Langston early on. Langston struggled to make early headway butcaught a break when Ferry highsided the Kawasaki entering a corner atthe bottom of one of Glen Helen's long downhills, followed shortlyafter by Windham.
The break seemed to get Langston going and hedropped his lap times in the next few laps to close right on to Shortand Alessi, making the passes he needed to take lead and open up asizeable 10-second lead on Alessi by the flag, who in turn was 11seconds clear of Short.
TOYOTA AMA MOTOCROSS SERIES Final Rd - Glen Helen Raceway,
San Bernadino,California
Motocross: 1 Grant Langston (Yam) 45, 2 MikeAlessi (KTM) 44, 3 Kevin Windham (Hon) 41, 4 Tim Ferry (Kaw) 36, 5Andrew Short (Hon) 35, 6 Josh Hill (Yam) 29, 7 Mike Brown (Hon) 29, 8Gavin Gracyk (Hon) 22, 9 Kyle Mace (Kaw) 17, 10 Ryan Clark (Hon) 17, 11Cody Cooper (Hon) 14, 12 Troy Adams (Suz) 13, 13 Richie Owens (Hon) 13,14 Michael Byrne (Suz) 12, 15 Josh Summey (Hon) 11.
Final Series Standings: 1 Langston 439 Champion, 2Alessi 423, 3 Short 421, 4 Ferry 417, 5 Windham 363, 6 Ricky Carmichael(Suz) 291, 7 James Stewart (Kaw) 290, 8 Byrne 230, 9 Gracyk 218, 10David Vuillemin (Yam) 207, 11 Ivan Tedesco (Suz) 198, 12 Davi Millsaps(Hon) 186, 13 Summey 173, 14 Jason Thomas (Hon) 128, 15 Clark 117.
Motocross Lites: 1 Ben Townley (Kaw) 47, 2 RyanVillopoto (Kaw) 47, 3 Brett Metcalfe (Kaw) 40, 4 Broc Hepler (Yam) 32,5 Austin Stroupe (Kaw) 29, 6 Martin Davalos (KTM) 29, 7 Jake Weimer(Hon) 29, 8 Trey Canard (Hon) 27, 9 Nico Izzi (Suz) 23, 10 KyleChisholm (Kaw) 20, 11 Thomas Hahn (Hon) 18, 12 Kyle Cunningham (Yam)16, 13 Steve Boniface (Kaw) 14, 14 Broc Tickle (Yam) 12, 15 Jake Moss(Yam) 11.
Final Series Standings: 1 Villopoto 544 Champion,2 Townley 525, 3 Josh Grant (Hon) 346, 4 Jason Lawrence (Yam) 277, 5Ryan Dungey (Suz) 267, 6 Weimer 255, 7 Metcalfe 242, 8 Hahn 220.