Reed 2nd in St Louis to keep title dream alive
By TMX Archives on 21st Apr 08
Yamaha's Chad Reed battled through the pain of his fractured shoulder to take a decent second position to main title rival Kevin Windham in front of almost 49,000 fans last weekend at the Edward Jones Dome in St Louis for the fifteenth round of seventeen in the Monster Energy AMA Supercross championship, also an FIM World Championship.
Reed seized the lead on the first lap of the main event, taking place just oneweek after his heavy practice crash in Detroit, but was powerless to preventWindham from seizing control. The result was nevertheless the Australian'seleventh podium of the season on the San Manuel YZ450F and means that his pointslead was only cut to 13 with two races to go.
"I was a long way from 100percent tonight, going from twelfth last week to second is huge for me," hesaid. "I was back and forth this week seeing doctors and trying to just geteverything taken care of. We made huge gains this week, and there were a lot ofpeople who supported me. Unfortunately, we've been in this position a lot, soyou learn over the years. Last weekend was just survival, while this weekend, Ifelt pretty good in practice. The track just got really gnarly in the mainevent, and the whoops were really tough, and I couldn't hang with Windham. I hadto let go of my pride and look at the bigger picture, and that's tough. I felt,for the rest of the track, I had what it took to win; I just didn't have what ittook in the whoops."
"I feel like I'm still in control of this thing,"he added. "To salvage a second this weekend, it was huge for me, and I think itwas huge for my competitors. You can see that a lot of them are reallymotivated, still we got out there, got a good start, and I did what I had todo."
Reed's team-mate Nathan Ramsey took a season-best finish withfourth place. Josh Hill was sixteenth.
AMA Motocross Champion GrantLangston has missed the entire Indoor campaign with an eye affliction but hopesto begin riding very soon to prepare for his Outdoor defence. "He's coming overthis week to start riding so that we can check him out, but we're still notcompletely sure he's going to be ready for Glen Helen," said team manager JimmyPerry. "But that is the plan, for him to be ready to go come Glen Helen. His eyeseems to be healing very slowly, so we'll have to wait and see."
Thepenultimate Supercross meeting takes place at the Qwest Field in Seattle nextweekend.
2008 AMA-SX St. Louis, MO 21/04/2008
Race 1 - 20 Laps
Pos. Rider Manu. Nat. Total Time
1 Kevin Windham Honda USA 18'7.740
2 Chad Reed Yamaha AUS 0'7.765
3 Andrew Short Honda USA 0'16.083
4Nathan Ramsey Yamaha USA 0'22.079
5 Thomas Hahn Kawasaki USA 0'26.788
6David D Millsaps Honda USA 0'31.473
7 Justin Brayton KTM USA 0'37.787
8Paul Carpenter Honda USA 0'42.197
9 Travis Preston Kawasaki USA 0'51.429
10 Jason Thomas Honda USA 0'66.715
11 Nicholas Wey KTM USA -1 Laps
12 David Vuillemin Suzuki FRA -1 Laps
13 Heath Voss Honda USA -1 Laps
14 Eric Sorby Honda USA -1 Laps
15 Bryan K Johnson Honda USA -1 Laps
16 Josh Hill Yamaha USA -1 Laps
Rider Standings19/04/2008
Pos. Rider Manu. Nat. Points
1. Chad Reed Yamaha AUS318
2. Kevin Windham Honda USA 305
3. David D Millsaps Honda USA 244
4. Andrew Short Honda USA 241
5. Josh Hill Yamaha USA 196
6. TimFerry Kawasaki USA 189
7. Nathan Ramsey Yamaha USA 173
8. DavidVuillemin Suzuki FRA 146
9. Paul Carpenter Honda USA 135
10. NicholasWey KTM USA 131
11. Charles Summey Yamaha USA 120
12. Heath Voss HondaUSA 109
13. Travis Preston Kawasaki USA 93
14. Jason Thomas Honda USA 85
15. Eric Sorby Honda USA 83
25. Grant Langston Yamaha RSA 38
39.Broc Hepler Yamaha USA 3
Manufacturer Standings19/04/2008
Pos. Manufacturer Points
1. Yamaha 339
2. Honda327
3. Kawasaki 267
4. Suzuki 195
5. KTM 135