Winds of change
By TMX Archives on 20th Feb 08
THREE years after he last tasted victory in an AMA Supercross event, Torco Honda's Kevin Windham dominated the Supercross class Main at round seven of the championship at Houston on Saturday night to stand atop the podium once again. In front of a massive 50,000 crowd inside the city's Reliant Stadium, and on a track which he himself helped design, Windham led almost the entire race with ease and cruised to victory over an out-of-sorts championship leader, Chad Reed, and Kawasaki veteran, Tim Ferry.
It was a popular and timely victory for the veteran Honda rider after the recent dominance of Reed, and left fans hoping for a closer fight between the pair for the rest of the series.
The roller-coaster Supercross Lites class, meanwhile, left Houston for its extended break until April's title-decider in Seattle following another enthralling and unpredicatable encounter.
As it is, Yamaha of Troy's Jason Lawrence goes into the break holding a six-point lead over Ryan Dungey, but Lawrence, after winning the last three races, could not make it four on the trot as Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Austin Stroupe hit his stride and passed Lawrence to take the win.
Lawrence, however, may well have had the championship on his mind as, once again, Dungey hit the deck at Houston and could not recover higher than fourth, and handed a few more crucial points to Lawrence.
Windham had helped design the Houston track as part of a new supercross initiative that will see other top-flight names design tracks later in the series, and you could be forgiven for thinking that he had reconstructed his practice track inside the arena given his speed all day.
It didn't take him long to establish himself firmly as the leader of the Main either as holeshotter Davi Millsaps ditched the factory Honda before two laps were completed, handing Windham a lead he would comfortably stretch out.
Series leader Reed, meanwhile, made a horrible start right on the very edge of the top-ten and struggled to work his way through the pack like you would expect.
It took him till lap 11 of 20 to work his way past Tim Ferry and up to second spot, by which time Windham had already set himself into cruise mode, well on his way to victory.
MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES
Rd 7 Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX
SUPERCROSS: 1 Kevin Windham (Hon), 2 Chad Reed (Yam), 3 Timmy Ferry (Kaw), 4 Joshua Hill (Yam), 5 Andrew Short (Hon), 6 Nathan Ramsey (Yam), 7 Charles Summey (Yam), 8 Davi Millsaps (Hon), 9 Nick Wey (KTM), 10 David Vuillemin (Suz), 11 Paul Carpenter (Hon), 12 Ryan Clark (Hon), 13 Jeff Gibson (Kaw), 14 Jacob Marsack (Hon), 15 Jason Thomas (Hon).
Series Standings after 7 (of 16) rounds: 1 Reed 169 points, 2 Windham 137, 3 Ferry 119, 4 Short 101, 5 Millsaps 98, 6 Ramsey 85, 7 Hill 82, 8 Wey 77, 9 Mike Alessi (Suz) 69, 10 Vuillemin 60.
SUPERCROSS LITES: 1 Austin Stroupe (Kaw), 2 Jason Lawrence (Yam), 3 Jake Weimer (Hon), 4 Ryan Dungey (Suz), 5 Brett Metcalfe (Kaw), 6 Dan Reardon (Hon), 7 Robert Kiniry (Hon), 8 Wil Hahn (Yam), 9 Michael Lapaglia (Suz), 10 Matthew Lemoine (Yam), 11 Kyle Cunningham (Hon), 12 Thomas Hahn (Kaw), 13 Billy Laninovich (KTM), 14 Michael Blose (Suz), 15 Chris Blose (Suz).
Series Standings after 7 (of 8) rounds: 1 Lawrence 135 points, 2 Dungey 129, 3 Stroupe 113, 4 Metcalfe 112, 5 T Hahn 101, 6 Reardon 95, 7 Justin Brayton (KTM) 85, 8 Kiniry 71, 9 W Hahn 69, 10 Laninovich 62.
Next Round: February 23 Georgia Dome, Altanta, GA.
For full report see T+MX NEWS, Friday, February 22, 2008