Indiana tones
By TMX Archives on 5th Mar 08
AFTER a couple of sub-par races by his usual standards, Yamaha's Chad Reed returned to winning ways in emphatic fashion at round nine of the AMA Supercross Series at Indianapolis' cavernous RCA Dome.
Bouncing back from a hard fall the previous weekend in Atlanta, Reed led from the gate to the flag to notch-up an easy win over fellow Yamaha rider Josh Hill and Honda's Andrew Short, and made a good points gain on nearest championship rival Kevin Windham after the veteran Honda rider struggled to fifth place behind impressive 450cc class debutant, Ryan Dungey, on the factory Suzuki.
Supercross Lites class favourite, Ryan Villopoto, bounced back from his disasterous night at Atlanta too aboard his Pro Circuit Kawasaki, but even the multi-AMA champion could not better rookie sensation Trey Canard on the night as he took his second successive win in only his second ever supercross in what was a crash-filled and eventful Main.
Reed had never won inside the RCA Dome prior to the event, but after being handed the duties to design the track for the race, following on from James Stewart's design in Atlanta, Reed dominated on a technical track that presented numerous line choices and good passing opportunities.
Getting the drop on the field out of the gate, Reed exited turn one at the front of the pack and that was the closest anyone got to him all race.
He simply cruised away from the rest at a rate of knots, leaving the pack to squabble over the final podium places over ten-seconds in arrears.
Daytona winner Davi Millsaps emerged from the battling pack of Hill, Short and Windham as the likley candidate for the runner-up spot and as the race wore-on began to establish a gap over the rest, but the Honda rider couldn't hold it and hit the deck three laps from home and was unable to re-start his machine.
He eventually got it fired-up, but the damage was done and 18th was all he could salvage.
Millsaps misfortune left the way for Hill to make it a Yamaha 1-2, just holding off short for the position, while Ryan Dungey, out on the 450 while the West Coast Lites Championship is on hiatus, came strong late in the race to pass Windham for a superb fourth place.
Reeds win lifted him back up to sizeable 34-point lead in the championship over Windham, with the pair runnaway from third place Short who passed Tim Ferry after the Kawasaki rider was forced to sit it out the race after a practice crash.
Seemingly feeling no adverse effects after getting sucker-punched by Josh Grant's bike in Atlanta, Ryan Villopoto was right in the mix for the Lites class win but an uncharacteristic crash cost him the win, and almost ruined Trey Canard's night too.
Canard took the early lead in the Main and fended off the challenge of Villopoto and second Pro Circuit rider Brandon Jesseman for five laps until Villopoto went for a pass, lost it, and took both himself and Canard down.
Canard remounted first and was gifted the win the following lap when Jesseman stalled in exactly the same spot as the incident had happened.
Villopoto recovered to second while another rookie, Nico Izzi, claimed his first podium finish of the season in front of Red Bull Honda fill-in Benjamin Coisy, Ryan Sipes, and Jesseman.
Canard now holds an impressive 14-point margin over Sipes in tables thanks to his two perfect scores with Daytona's infamous circuit looming this Friday night.
MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES
Rd 9 - RCA Dome, Indianapolis, Indiana
SUPERCROSS: 1 Chad Reed (Yam), 2 Joshua Hill (Yam), 3 Andrew Short (Hon), 4 Ryan Dungey (Suz), 5 Kevin Windham (Hon), 6 Travis Preston (Kaw), 7 Paul Carpenter (Hon), 8 Nathan Ramsey (Yam), 9 David Vuillemin (Suz), 10 Josh Hansen (Yam), 11 Troy Adams (Hon), 12 Manuel Rivas (Kaw), 13 Jason Thomas (Hon), 14 Heath Voss (Hon), 15 Jacob Marsack (Hon).
Series Standings after 9 (of 16) rounds: 1 Reed 209 points, 2 Windham 175, 3 Short 141, 4 Tim Ferry (Kaw) 137, 5 Davi Millsaps (Hon) 127, 6 Ramsey 114, 7 Hill 106, 8 Vuillemin 84, 9 Nick Wey (KTM) 84, 10 Carpenter 81.
SUPERCROSS LITES: 1 Trey Canard (Hon), 2 Ryan Villopoto (Kaw), 3 Nico Izzi (Suz), 4 Ben Coisy (Hon), 5 Ryan Sipes (KTM), 6 Branden Jesseman (Kaw), 7 Tyler Bowers (Yam), 8 Billy Payne (Hon), 9 Matthew Goerke (KTM), 10 Martin Davalos (KTM), 11 Jake Moss (Yam) 12 Josh Grant (Hon), 13 Travis Sewell (Suz), 14 Ryan Morais (Yam), 15 Nathan Skaggs (Hon).
Series Standings after 2 (of 8) rounds: 1 Canard 50 points, 2 Sipes 36, 3 Davalos 33, 4 Izzi 33, 5 Bowers 31, 6 Jesseman 30, 7 Coisy 29, 8 Moss 28, 9 Grant 23, 10 Villopoto 22.
Next Round: March 7 – Daytona International Speedway, Daytona, FL.