On the level!
By TMX Archives on 5th Mar 09
TEAM Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Chad Reed has got his campaign for the 2009 Monster Energy AMA and FIM World Supercross Champion-ships back on track with victory in the ninth round of the series at Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis. The win now levels the score, with both San Manuel Yamaha's James Stewart and Reed sitting at the top of the leaderboard on 199 points apiece.
In front of a massive 61,000 fans, Reed made an impressive start and claimed the holeshot in the 20-lap main event followed by Mike Alessi and Stewart through the opening lap. With these two battling hard, Reed stretched the lead by a couple of bike lengths. On lap two, Stewart was past Alessi and on the hunt for Reed but a mistake at the end of the lap saw the Yamaha star hit the floor, allowing Geico Powersports Honda's Kevin Windham through to enjoy one of his best starts of 2009. Stewart remounted and once again began the chase. By lap five, Stewart rider was past Windham and into second and this was the order until lap 13 when Stewart found his way round Reed. Reed didn't give in though and kept Stewart under constant pressure until he eventually went down for a second time. From here on, Reed kept his head down and gained enough ground to hold-off a final attack from Stewart who had to settle for second.
"I knew that if I had a good start I could give myself a chance,” said Reed. "James has been riding awesome, but tonight he made a mistake and I snuck around to get the win. This crowd was awesome and made me feel like I was in front of my hometown crowd back in Australia because they were so loud and supportive.”
Meanwhile, Mike Alessi claimed his first AMA Supercross-class podium, with an impressive third place finish and JGR/ Yamaha's Josh Grant moved up from a poor start to finish fourth, just ahead of Red Bull Honda's Ivan Tedesco, who took his best finish of the year in fifth.
The Monster Energy AMA and FIM World Supercross Cham-pionships now head to the Daytona International Speed-way, Daytona Beach, for round ten of the series on March 7.
A pile-up in the Eastern Regional Supercross Lites class at the first turn forced a re-start, where Monster Energy/ Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Christophe Pourcel claimed the holeshot with teammate Austin Stroupe in second. However, after lap two Stroupe took the lead and secured his first win of the year. Meanwhile Nico Izzi enjoyed his third podium finish where he took third in the 15-lap main event.
"It was a great day for me,” said Stroupe. "The first turn was pretty rough for us, but I was glad to get through there clean. This is a huge crowd and this is an awesome new venue.”
AMA & WORLD SUPERCROSS CHAMPS
Rd 9 – Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, Indiana (Feb 28)
SUPERCROSS MAIN: 1 Chad Reed (Suz), 2 James Stewart (Yam), 3 Mike Alessi (Suz), 4 Josh Grant (Yam), 5 Ivan Tedesco (Hon), 6 Ben Coisy (Hon), 7 David Millsaps (Hon), 8 Michael Byrne (Suz), 9 Ryan Villopoto (Kaw), 10 Tim Ferry (Kaw), 11 Andrew Short (Hon), 12 Matt Boni (Hon), 13 Heath Voss (Hon), 14 Ryan Sipes (KTM), 15 Josh Hill (Yam), 16 Nick Wey (Yam), 17 Robert Kiniry (Kaw), 18 Tyler Bowers (Hon), 19 Broc Hepler (Yam), 20 Kevin Windham (Hon).
SERIES STANDINGS after 9 rounds: 1 Stewart & Reed 199 points, 3 Short 150, 4 Grant 138, 5 Villopoto 138, 6 Tedesco 132, 7 Millsaps 116, 8 M Alessi 113, 9 Windham 112, 10 Ferry 98, 11 Hill 82, 12 Voss 59, 13 Wey 55, 14 Coisy 51, 15 Paul Carpenter 46,...
SUPERCROSS LITES MAIN: 1 Austin Stroupe (Kaw), 2 Christophe Pourcel (Kaw), 3 Nico Izzi (Suz), 4 Branden Jesseman (Kaw), 5 Steven Clarke (Suz), 6 Levi Kilbarger (Hon), 7 Daniel Blair (Hon), 8 Matthew Lemoine (Yam), 9 Shane Sewell (Yam), 10 Kyle Keylon (Hon), 11 Vince Friese (Hon), 12 Bradley Ripple (Hon), 13 Kyle Gills (Kaw), 14 Ryan Smith (Suz), 15 Wil Hahn (KTM), 16 Jacob Saylor (Yam), 17 Tyler Wharton (Hon), 18 Phillip Nicoletti (Hon).
SERIES STANDINGS (East) after 3 rounds: 1 Pourcel 72 points, 2 Izzi 62, 3 Stroupe 57, 4 Jesseman 43, 5 W Hahn 36, 6 M Davalos 35, 7 Clarke 35, 8 B Wharton 34, 9 Lemoine 29, 10 Blair 26, 11 Kilbarger 24, 12 M Goerke 23, 13 B Metcalfe 22, 14 Saylor 22, 15 D Durham 19,...
NEXT ROUND: March 6 – Daytona Speedway, Daytona Beach, Florida.
Chad Reed evened up the scores with James Stewart again and which one of them will take the championship is anybody's guess.