Rock' on Grant!
By TMX Archives on 18th Oct 07
FRESH off the back of his recent AMA National Motocross title, Yamaha's Grant Langston claimed the $100,000 top prize for overall victory at the Rockstar US Open of Supercross at the Grand Garden Arena, inside the vast MGM Grand hotel, Las Vegas, on Saturday night.
Notching up 2-5 finishes across the two nights inone of the most enthralling and exciting US Open races in its history,Langston just edged out fellow Yamaha rider and opening night winnerChad Reed for the overall on a better second night finish, where bothwere forced to come through the pack after Reed caused a first turnpile-up, while Honda rider Josh Demuth surprisingly completed thepodium in front of shock second night winner Jake Weimer of the FactoryConnection Honda team.
With Ricky Carmichael forced out of the event withillness and James Stewart pulling out of the event in practice due to alack of bike-time following his recent knee injury, the event wasthrown wide open, and with the added interest of the event allowingboth 250F and 450F machines to compete for the Open title on what is avery, very tight course that hands no discernible advantage to thebigger machines, the ingredients for a classic encounter were sewn. Nobody seemed to tell Chad Reed on Friday night though.
Having spent nearly all summer away from racing,thanks to his supercross only contract, Reed looked sharp and fresh forthe opening nights racing and he claimed the unique Toyota Trifectaaward for fastest qualifying lap, the hole-shot and the win, scooping$55,000 in the process.
After pushing new Makita Suzuki signing, MikeAlessi, out at the first turn, Reed assumed control of the 20-lap raceand was never headed.
ROCKSTAR US OPEN OF SUPERCROSS MGM Grand, Las Vegas, NV
OVERALL: 1 Grant Langtson (Yam) 38, 2 Chad Reed(Yam) 38, 3 Josh Demuth (Hon) 37, 4 Jake Weimer (Hon 250F) 36, 5 MikeAlessi (Suz) 36, 6 Andrew Short (Hon) 34, 7 Dan Reardon (Hon 250F) 32,8 Justin Brayton Fort Dodge (KTM 250F, 9 Tim Ferry (Kaw) 27, 10 MichaelByrne (Suz) 22, 11 Jason Thomas (Hon) 21, 12 Heath Voss (Hon) 19, 13Bryan Johnson (Hon) 15, 14 Billy Laninovich (KTM 250F) 9, 15 JeffGibson (Kaw).
FRIDAY RESULTS: 1 Reed, 2 Langston, 3 Short, 4Ferry, 5 Alessi, 6 Demuth, 7 Reardon (250F), 8 Brayton (250F), 9 Byrne,10 Weimer (250F).
SATURDAY RESULTS: 1 Weimer (250F), 2 Demuth, 3Alessi, 4 Reardon (250F), 5 Langston, 6 Brayton (250F), 7 Short, 8Reed, 9 Voss, 10 Thomas.
For full story and pictures, see T+MX NEWS, Friday, October 19, 2007.