Stewart's Angel delight
By TMX Archives on 11th Jan 07
KAWASAKI'S James Stewart marked his card as the likely inheritor of Ricky Carmichael's supercross crown with a convincing win in front of 45,000 in-house fans and a live television audience at the opening round of the 2007 AMA Supercross Series at Angel Stadium, Anaheim, last Saturday night, beating Ricky Carmichael to a distant second place in his final ever Anaheim race while the injured Chad Reed surprised everyone by firstly showing up to race and then claiming the final podium place in the Supercross class.
Consistently around a second faster than his rivals through practice sessions at the Californian stadium, Stewart continued that form through into the evening programme and despite a small tip-over in a turn on the fifth lap of the main, the factory Kawasaki number one was clearly the class of field on the technically demanding track and rode to a comfortable and confident ten-second winning margin to claim his second consecutive Anaheim1 victory and serve notice to his rivals that he is firmly the championship favourite.
There was further success for Kawasaki too in the opening Supercross Lites West salvo with the Monster Energy teams current AMA motocross champion Ryan Villopoto as expected taking a relatively easy win, but the big surprise on the night – to the Americans at least – was the phenomenal second place finish for reigning MX2 world champion Christophe Pourcel in his first ever AMA supercross race who rode his usual smooth and stylish race to easily beat a host of much more established supercross names and claim the podium position in front of the new Yamaha of Troy signing Jason Lawrence and KTM's Josh Hansen.
Pre-season injury laid waste to a number of the big names in the Supercross class, and Chad Reed looked to be on this list after cracking his shoulder and collarbone in the week leading up to the race, but even if the field was fully stoked with talent Stewart would still have been the man to beat and he controlled the race pretty much from the word go, only the fifth lap bobble causing him any kind of a problem on the way to the win.
AMP'D MOBILE AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES
Rd 1 – Angel Stadium, Anaheim, CA.
SUPERCROSS: 1 James Stewart (Kaw), 2 Ricky Carmichael (Suz), 3 Chad Reed (Yam), 4 Travis Preston (Hon), 5 Tim Ferry (Kaw), 6 David Vuillemin (Hon), 7 NicK Wey, 8 Heath Voss (Hon), 9 Kevin Windham (Hon), 10 Michael Byrne (Suz),11 Paul Carpenter (Kaw), 12 Tyler Evans (Suz), 13 Jiri Dostal (Hon), 14 Ivan Tedesco (Suz), 15 Jeff Gibson (Kaw).
SERIES STANDINGS (After 1 of 16 rounds): 1 Stewart 25, 2 Carmichael 22, 3 Reed 20, 4 Preston 18, 5 Ferry 16, 6 Vuillemin 15, 7 Wey 14, 8 Voss 13, 9 Windham 12, 10 Byrne 11.
SUPERCROSS LITES: 1 Ryan Villopoto (Kaw), 2 Christophe Pourcel (Kaw), 3 Jason Lawrence (Yam), 4 Josh Hansen (KTM), 5 Jake Weimer (Hon), 6 Troy Adams (Suz), 7 Matthew Lemoine (Yam), 8 Chris Gosselaar (Kaw), 9 Kyle Chisholm (Kaw), 10 Justin Keeney (Kaw), 11 Steve Boniface (Kaw), 12 Richie Owens (Hon), 13 Kyle Cunningham (Yam), 14 Adam Chatfield (Hon), 15 Cody Mackie (Kaw).
SERIES STANDINGS (After 1 of 8 rounds): 1 Villopoto 25, 2 Pourcel 22, 3 Lawrence 20, 4 Hansen 18, 5 Weimer 16, 6 Adams 15, 7 Lemoine, 8 Gosselaar 13, 9 Chisholm 12, 10 Keeney 11.
Next Round - January 13, Chase Field, Phoenix, AZ.
For full report, results and pictures see T+MX NEWS, Friday, January 12, 2007