Reed in control at Anaheim 3..
Published: 04th February 2008
Author: Pondo
Chad Reed wins again to sweep all three Anaheim rounds - there’s still a long way to go, but the 2004 champion is in charge and pulling away..
It may well be that this is a template for the remainder of the Supercross season, but Chad Reed won again on Saturday. The Thunder from Down Under edged a holeshot from Davi Millsaps, but when he tried to drop the hammer and pull out, he found he had company in the form of Kevin Windham K-Dub was firing on all cylinders, and made a decent fist of bringing the battle to Chad, showing a wheel to the Australian’s San Manuel Yamaha on a few occasions without being ruthless enough to make it stick, but then the Torco Fuels Honda veteran was cursed with a deflated front tyre - Windham lost the sharp edge of his pace, but rode a smart race to hang on to fourth, ahead of Andrew Short. Out front, Reed was largely on his own, but unable to produce his normal devastating - as Windham fell back, first Millsaps then Tim Ferry set about trying to force the issue. Speedy Reedy had it all in hand and crossed the line almost five seconds to the good, whilst Red Dog came close but failed to snatch second from The Duke. If there’s a glimmer of hope that someone could mount a challenge to Chad for race wins, it comes from Windham, Millsaps and Ferry. Wins, but not the title - Chad’s 26 points clear, now, more than a race win. There’s a long way to go, but it would take a disaster for Reed not to canter to his second Supercross title.
In the Lites class, conversely, the championship was blown wide open as series leader Ryan Dungey hit the buffers. The Makita Suzuki youngster suffered a terrible star in the main, then got involved in an incident with Wil Hahn and went down during a spirited fight back. Dungey did very well to fight back to a second time to finish eleventh, for ten points that could very easily make a big difference at the end of the season. In contrast, out front Jason Lawrence made quick work of the fast-starting Austin Stroupe and didn’t put a wheel wrong for the rest of the night. Rookie Stroupe was also rock-solid, consolidating his decent start to the season by holding on for second, ahead of his veteran team mate Brett Metcalfe. Dungey’s valiant effort leaves him with eight points in hand over Lawrence, with Daniel Reardon a further eight points back from J-Law.
Travis Preston finally had a decent turn of luck before Anaheim - the lanky Californian was massively unlucky to lose his Torco Fuels ride when the sponsorship budget got cut (he’d already turned down approaches from other teams in the belief that he would be under the same rig for ’08). But when James Stewart logged out of the Supercross series for the year, Monster Energy Kawasaki found themselves in need of a top class pilot. After a test session, Kawasaki opted to run Preston for the remainder of the Supercross series and see how it goes - TP struggled at Anaheim 3 after not racing Supercross since Daytona last year, but let’s hope it comes good for the chap in the remainder of the series.
In similar “a decent turn of luck for a good guy” news, Brandon Jesseman signed for Pro Circuit for the East Coast Lites series. The quiet veteran takes the spot reserved for Christophe Pourcel, who’s still on the long-term sick list after his devastating injury in Ireland last year.