Indy

So Chad Reed gets to build his own supercross track this week, and as expected he equips it with the Reed favorites: 180 degree corners seperating rhythm sections. I've heard Chad lamenting the loss of back-to-back rhythm lanes since they started going away back in 2005. I think the theory is that riders are thinking about one lane while they're racing through another, and that leads to crashes.

But if you're Chad Reed those sections are easy, and you'd just as soon make the whole darned track a technical rhythm section. Maybe throw in some gnarly whoops. So Chad did his best to build this track to his liking--Windham and Stewart said they built their tracks to be fun but not neccesarily favor them. Reed, well, hey, can you blame the guy for taking advantage?

But here's the irony. The most difficult rhythm section here is after the start. And would you believe that Kevin Windham was the first to dial it in cleanly, tripling in and out and then tripling the jump out of the next corner. Next to do it was Davi Millsaps. It took Reed awhile to get it down. He seemed to be unhappy with his suspension, too. So Windham ended up fastest in the first practice session.

A few minutes later Ryan Dungey was out there in unseeded practice, and he actually put in the fourth fastest time of anyone, just behind Windham, Reed and Millsaps. I was impressed that Dungey actually put in a lap a tiny bit faster than Josh Hill, his fellow pro sophomore who has already been riding a 450.

But then it all changed in the second session, when Hill went out and put in the fastest time of anyone! Yup, even a tenth quicker than Reed. I think Windham was looking around more than working on going all out for his lap, and Millsaps spent some time working on his machine in the mechanic's area as well. The bottom line is that this track didn't separate the riders once everyone figured out the tricky combinations. I think now it will come down to the ruts. It already looks bad out there and some of the more technical combinations may not be doable every lap. This could lead to mistakes, and I think that will be the deciding factor as opposed to all-out speed.

Dungey crashed out of the second session when he cased a triple bad. He's shaken up but otherwise okay.

In Lites, RV2 looked much more like his old self, just aggressive and attacking everything. But Josh Grant had a faster time in the first session and Trey Canard beat everyone (!) in the second one. Very impressive.


I really pumped (super, even) on how the series is going right now, except for this ridiculous string on injuries. But at the front, the wins are really in doubt. Make sure to tune in www.supercrossonline.com for our webcast.