Yamaha's Chad Reed is having a solid season, finishing on the podium is every race so far except the mudder in San Francisco.

Ivan Tedesco has had a great season so far, posting numerous fourth place finishes and his first Supercross career podium at Anaheim III.

Jeremy McGrath posted some impressive top ten finishes in his abbreviated 2006 seaso. We hope to see the King back next year!

Kawasaki's ever-consistent Michael Byrne has put in some great finishes so far in 2006.

Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki's Ryan Vilopoto (#51) was running a solid race at Anaheim II, until this little incident...

The Parts Unlimited/THOR crew at Anaheim II. From left to right: Frank Porupski, Kevin Shenk, James Lavender and Jeremy Conklin.

Grant Langston is having a phenomenal 2006 season, with wins at both Anaheim II and III.

Langston took the checkers at Anaheim II and III over the two top Supercross Lites title contenders, Andrew Short and Nate Ramsey.

fter Phoenix, it seemed obvious that James Stewart and Ricky Carmichael stood above all others as the downright fastest in the world, as each had claimed a win in the two rounds run to that point. Anaheim II, round three of the Amp’d Mobile/AMA Supercross series, continued that trend, as Carmichael and Stewart staged a chase for the ages for 18 laps of the 20-lap main event.
     Stewart got out front first, and Carmichael found second place a few seconds behind. Over the next few laps, Ricky chased Stewart down and the battle began, as the pair went like a freight train out front. Carmichael was hot on Stewart’s heels until the second to last lap when Stewart crashed trying to avoid the downed machine of Mike Brown, handing the lead and the win to Carmichael, and second place once again to Chad Reed.
     “Obviously, you’re always happy to get a win,” Carmichael said. “It’s unfortunate, though, because I would have rather not won that way. I would’ve rather passed James fair and square, but he was riding good and I was waiting for a slip-up. A couple times I got beside him I think before the mechanics’ area there, and I couldn’t get by him. I could’ve went deep on him on that right-hander there, but I didn’t feel like the time was right, and it wasn’t necessary. I was just waiting, and unfortunately that happened to him. But it always feels good to win. It’s just a shame that it happened that way, but I’ll take it.”
     Then it was on to San Francisco. Mother Nature was not particularly agreeable on race day, dumping loads of that classic Bay Area slop down on SBC Park. Despite the inclement weather, Stewart and Carmichael once again put on a great show, battling for the lead the entire race. The duo were both showing impressive speed in the mud, jumping the doubles like they were on dry land, when the rest of the field could hardly clear the single jumps. Nearing the end of the race, RC cleared the big finish line double and finally made the pass on JBS, only to falter slightly a few moments later and hand the lead back to Stewart, who ultimately held on for the win. Despite the mucky conditions, both Ricky and James seemed to enjoy the battle. “I knew he was behind me, and I could hear the crowd,” Stewart said. “Every time I didn’t jump the finish line, or I messed up, I could hear the crowd going crazy, and I couldn’t tell if he crashed or he was right up on me. I looked back, I saw that 4, and I was like, ‘There he is again (laughs).’”
     Nick Wey put in an impressive ride for third, and his first podium ever in the premier class. Yamaha’s Chad Reed got a miserable start and at one point dropped all the way back to 17th, but he soldiered on and managed to work his way back up to fifth place, salvaging valuable points. So, just how fast were RC and Stewart in the mud? Well, they lapped third podium finisher Nick Wey…

Carmichael and Stewart threw down an unbelievable battle in the mud in San Francisco. Here, Ricky gives a look back to see that #7 breathing right down his neck.

Reedy, is that you? Chad Reed had a tough time in San Francisco, at one point dropping all the way back to 17th, but managed to work his way back up to 5th place, salvaging valuable points.

      The series then rolled back into the Big A for Anaheim III. The start of the main event saw Carmichael take an early lead, with Stewart going down in the first turn for the second time in the season. However, unlike Stewart’s first-turn crash in Phoenix where he managed to get right back on the charge, this time he had a considerably harder time starting up his bike and lost tons of ground. Ricky held on for the win over Chad Reed in second and Suzuki’s Ivan Tedesco claimed the third place spot for his first ever podium finish in the premier class. RC’s win at A3 may bode well for his championship hopes…the last couple of times Carmichael has lost Anaheim I and then won Anaheim II and Anaheim III, he has gone on to win the title.
     “I try not to be superstitious,” Carmichael said. “Sometimes I am. I don’t think there’s any way around it sometimes. But I’m a firm believer that what I do in the off-season is good, and I don’t think it has anything to do with winning these races, but Anaheim II and III have always been really good to me. It’s just a shame that I didn’t win the first race. That was a huge goal of mine, to win Anaheim I, and I didn’t do it. I’d love for the season to go the way it’s always gone, if that means anything–winning the last two Anaheims.”
San Diego marked a reversal of Anaheim II, where Stewart got out to a good start right behind Carmichael. This time, it was Stewart’s turn to do the pressuring, and he did. With just two laps to go, Stewart jumped to the inside of Carmichael and put a clean block-pass on the defending champ. Then he just had to worry about holding off Carmichael for two laps.
     “I thought, actually, I was going to try to get him right after the start down there in that corner and I felt I had a little better line toward the inside, but I knew I was good after that triple too, so I was just trying to pick a place that was clean,” Stewart said. “I didn’t want to make contact and stuff. It was clean racing, so it was good. I just got him right there, and then I was a little nervous that final lap because we had lappers in front of us, and I didn’t want to do the Mike Brown thing again and slide out [like at Anaheim II].”
Chad Reed put in another solid third place finish, and Jeremy McGrath claimed the fourth place spot, in what may have been his very last Supercross…maybe…
     Then there was St. Louis. Round 7 had all of the makings of a barnburner, but then things got a little crazy. During his heat race, Ricky Carmichael had a frightening and painful looking crash in the whoops and had to ride the semi, which he won. Then, in the main event, RC went down in the first turn, got back up, then suffered a broken shock spring and ended up with a DNF. Reed was out front, and Stewart was making his way up through the pack, but then he went down trying to pass for second and couldn’t re-start his KX. Reed took home his first win of the season, and earned the AMA series points lead. Tedesco followed in second with Honda’s Ernesto Fonseca in third. (Get well soon Ernie!) Stewart finished 17th and RC was credited with 20th.
     “This was probably my most important win of my career, I would say,” Reed said. “I had so much pressure on me, I just felt that I was 300 pounds lighter after the checkered flag. You know you can win, and it’s so tough to go home during the week and go, ‘Why do I feel so good here and so pathetic on the weekend?’ It’s really tough. To turn that around, it’s nice. I’m extremely happy and proud of the team for sticking by me. They never got frustrated. They probably got frustrated when I wasn’t around, but when I was, they never got frustrated…I mean, I knew that I could do it, and I never gave up on that, and that was all I had was my self-belief, because my on-track performance wasn’t showing a whole lot. I just went into the main event knowing that I could do it, and the first lap, Ernie passed me there and I saw Ivan going away, and I’m like, ‘I’m throwing this away. I’m either going to go for it and make it or they’re going to stretcher me out of here.’ So I’m happy that we got it done. It was a tough track tonight. Some sections were some really good dirt, and other sections are really rutty, so you had to be on your toes.”

Chad searches for answers at Anaheim III. At that point in the season, he had numerous podium finishes, but had yet to take home a win.

The legendary Jeff Ward got to be a KTM Junior Supercross dad for a day when his son rode the series at Anaheim III.

     As the series moved on to the Georgia Dome, the bombshell of all bombshells dropped the night before the Atlanta round…Carmichael was docked 25 points for out-of-spec fuel. Now, all of a sudden, Reed’s points lead sat at 17 over Stewart and 34 over Carmichael. The RC fuel controversy was, of course, reminiscent of the fuel fiascos of the past few seasons involving a few of the Yamahas (Reed, Vuillemin and privateer Tyson Hadsell) and Kawasaki with James Stewart. Plenty of questions came into light…is the fuel the problem, or is the fuel rule the problem? Would trace amounts of lead in the fuel give RC any kind of advantage on the four-stroke? (The answer to that question, incidentally, is no.) If this “unleaded race fuel” is all coming from the same supplier, where is the lead coming from? The AMA’s fuel edict created quite a firestorm, with some people saying that the penalty should hold up, since the other riders had suffered the same penalty in the past, while others said that the penalty should be reversed, as it could very well be the deciding factor in the championship title chase. The one thing that just about everyone agreed on however, was that Ricky was in no way at fault in the situation, and didn’t deserve to be docked the 25 points.
     Come Saturday night, Carmichael was still fired up over the fuel/points issue (and rightly so!) and it showed. In the main event, RC chased down Reed and passed him for the lead with relative ease. Stewart’s first-turn curse continued as he went down, yet again on the opening lap. Reed hung with Carmichael until just two to go, then made a mistake, handing the victory to RC–his fourth of the season. Reed followed in second, with Stewart in third.
     The fuel controversy continued to gather momentum over the next week, with plenty of industry input from the teams, riders, fans, officials, and from the source itself, VP Fuels. When it was ultimately determined that the AMA and FIM had different testing standards for fuel specifications, and that the FIM had no intention of handing down any sort of points penalty for the fuel infraction, the AMA decided to return the 25 points to Carmichael. Instead, Suzuki was fined $20,000. Was this a fair decision? Everyone has an opinion on that, and since this topic has been flogged to death already, we’ll leave it alone, but at least everyone was back on equal ground. Now heading into Indy, Carmichael was back only 6 points behind Reed for the title.
     In the Indy main event, Stewart went down yet again in the first turn! Having apparently learned from his past mistakes, the frustrated Stewart remounted quickly without stalling his KX450F and he headed out after the leaders while Carmichael moved around Fonseca for the lead. Reed rounded lap one in sixth, and amazingly, Stewart rounded the third lap in ninth. Eventually, Stewart found his way around Reed and continued his move toward the front while Reed attempted to latch onto his back wheel.
     “I just think I struggled to get into my rhythm right away, and I struggled to make passes,” Reed said. “I think I just needed to be more aggressive and try and make it happen a little more than most. I just kind of was too patient and too careful around those guys. When James came by, he was just a lot more aggressive than I was, so it was just frustrating.”
     Stewart made it up to second on lap nine, passing Nick Wey for the position, and it took Reed until five laps later to get by Wey for third. But by the time Stewart made it into second, Carmichael was long gone.
That was basically that. Stewart would catch Carmichael when Carmichael was in traffic, but then Carmichael would pull back out when Stewart hit the same batch of lappers.

Chris Gosselaar was a last minute addition to the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki team, filling in for the injured Ben Townley and Troy Adams. He proved himself to be a great choice, taking home the holeshot award and a second place finish in the Lites East coast season opener in St. Louis.

Chad Reed finally found the speed he was looking for in St. Louis and brought home the win for Yamaha.

     “It was pretty uneventful for me,” Carmichael said. “I got a pretty good start–I was, I think, second place there behind Ernesto–and I was able to get by him on lap two, and I just was trying to see where Chad was and of course where James was, and I could see James was on the move, so I just tried to mark him and do the best that I could to put in the best laps that I could and just keep him in check.”
Carmichael scored his fifth win of the AMA season while Stewart finished second for the first time.
     “I mean, honestly, I was trying to go from last to first, and I’m over finishing third,” Stewart said. “It’s actually the first second I’ve gotten all year. I wanted a win, and I knew I had to get up here, otherwise the championship is basically over. I’m having fun, though. I feel strong every week, but I’m just having little mistakes. Fix that, and it should be good.”
     Reed hung on for third and he still maintains the points lead, although he only holds one point over Carmichael with 7 rounds remaining.
     “I think that where I am this year and where I was last year it’s obviously a hell of a lot better,” Reed said. “Last year, I just started off on the wrong foot with the mud race, and I just never got it together. This year, my riding’s been kind of just coming and going, and this weekend we didn’t have it. That’s life, we move on, and we go to Daytona.”

AMP’D Mobile/AMA Supercross Series Points Standings (After 9 of 16 rounds): 1. Chad Reed (191/1 win); 2. Ricky Carmichael (190/5 wins): 3. James Stewart (174/3 wins); 4. Ivan Tedesco (144); 5. Nick Wey (133); 6. Michael Byrne (132); 7. Ernesto Fonseca (125); 8. Mike LaRocco (108); 9. Travis Preston (103); 10. Jeff Gibson (70).

AMP’D Mobile World Supercross GP Points Standings (After 11 of 17 rounds): 1. Ricky Carmichael (242/5 wins); 2. James Stewart (233/5 wins); 3. Chad Reed (231/1 win); 4. Ivan Tedesco (191); 5. (TIE) Nick Wey/Michael Byrne (179); 7. Jeff Gibson (127); 8. Jason Thomas (123); 9. Ryan Clark (122); 10. Tyler Evans (105).

      Grant Langston doesn’t do anything the easy way. Last year, he won the Eastern Regional Supercross Lites Championship on a tiebreaker, as he tied in points with Josh Hansen at the last event. Then, when the series went outdoors, Langston won the season-opening Hangtown Lites National after a last-corner pass attempt on Mike Alessi went sour and dislocated Langston’s ankle–although he still won the moto and the overall.
     And this isn’t anything new for Langston. Since coming to the USA in 2001, he has done a myriad of things the hard way. That very same year, he overcame a dislocated shoulder and a couple of DNFs in the Lites Nationals but still led the series going into the final moto, only to have his front wheel break, handing the championship to Mike Brown. The list goes on and on.
     “I don’t know if that’s a benefit,” Langston said. “I’m 23, and I’m going gray, so…I think these tight championships stress me out. My dad’s about to have a heart attack as well.”
     At Anaheim II, Langston finally got what he wanted–a good start, and an incident-free opening lap.
     Mike Alessi actually got the holeshot, followed by Langston, Andrew Short and Nathan Ramsey. Short actually passed Langston for a few feet, but Langston grabbed second back before the finish-line jump. Langston moved to the inside of Alessi on lap two and took the lead. From there, it was a sprint race to the finish, with Short and Ramsey (both also making relatively quick work of Alessi) giving chase.
     Langston sprinted to the finish, then cruised the last lap, taking the win with over 6 seconds to spare over Short and Ramsey–the other two winners on the season so far.
     “You know, when I first got here, Supercross was new for me, and I did win a few races in ‘01, but I was a little inconsistent,” Langston said. “Then in 2002, I thought I was riding pretty well, but that’s when Chad [Reed] arrived, and he was just a little bit better than I was that year, so the first few years were good. I’m not trying to bash anyone, but we definitely struggled on the 250 KTM. I just think that they kind of went in a little unprepared. Now that I’m riding with Kawasaki, I think our bike is just awesome. I think our bike last year was good, but I think our ‘06 bike is really good. I know we get paid to say that, but it genuinely is really that good. It’s made a big difference. I felt in the off-season that I picked my pace up and everything, but I knew there was going to be a lot of top competition on whichever coast you ride. I really think that my hard work and that of the whole team has really shown a big improvement.”
     In the last few seasons Nathan Ramsey has proved to be a very good mud rider. Last year’s season opener at Anaheim Stadium was probably the worst mud race in a decade, and it was Ramsey who put his Red Bull KTM on top of the field by the end of the day. Barely more than a year later, the rain again reared its head in San Francisco for round four of the AMP’D Mobile/AMA Supercross Series, and once again it was Ramsey grabbing the reins and taking the race win.
     “Everyone, as soon as it starts raining–ever since Anaheim I [2005]–they’re looking at me going, ‘He’s probably pumped!’” Ramsey says. “To be honest, I’m never pumped when it’s raining. I did do some riding in the mud growing up, and did some races back at Muddy Creek, and last year it rained a lot before the season. If you wanted to ride, you had to ride in the mud, so I got the feeling back doing that. This is really the second real mud Supercross race I ever raced, with Anaheim I last year being the first. I don’t know if I’m good in the mud, or just good at dog-walking my bike around the track. That’s Nate Dog-walking.”
     Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s rookie sensation Ryan Villopoto, hailing from rainy Washington state, actually grabbed the holeshot in the abbreviated 8-lap main event in San Francisco, but Ramsey was into the lead within a couple of laps. From there, Ramsey just pedaled his way through the mud, trying not to get stuck, and trying to hang onto the lead.

     On the last lap, as he headed down the final straightaway, Ramsey began to feel pressure from Brett Metcalfe, but hung on for the win, with Metcalfe in second and KTM’s Mike Alessi in third.
     On to Anaheim III…perhaps one of the best starters in motocross today, Mike Alessi grabbed the holeshot in the Supercross Lites main event, followed by the championship trio of Langston, Ramsey and Short. Within two laps, though, Langston made his way by Alessi and proceeded to check out. As Short tried to work his way by Ramsey, Ramsey lost the front end going into a flat turn and went down, remounting in 17th. With Langston way out front in the lead, and Short in third and working on Alessi, this was the worst possible scenario for Ramsey. He would only catch back up to 13th, the last rider on the lead lap. But there was no catching Grant Langston, who not only won the race, but also took over the points lead by one point over second place finisher Andrew Short. Alessi hung on for the third podium spot.
     The start of the San Diego Lites main event saw Mike Alessi grab yet another holeshot, followed closely by Team Honda’s Andrew Short. Short made quick work of Alessi and began to pull away while Alessi’s KTM teammate Nathan Ramsey came through from the tail of the top five and Grant Langston, who led the points going into the event, was coming up fast from nearly dead last. Ramsey couldn’t seem to do much with his young teammate, and Langston was reeling off lap after lap in the sub-50-second range. Short had one lap under 50 seconds, and it was the first lap. Langston had eight such laps.
     As Ramsey sat behind Alessi, Short continued to pull away until Langston caught the KTM duo and cleanly made his way past both of them on laps 11 and 12 of 15. Ramsey followed Langston past Alessi. Then, Langston set out after Short, who was nearly 6 seconds ahead. Grant narrowed the gap between himself and Short to just two seconds on lap 13, and then again on lap 14, but ultimately, Short held on for the checkers, taking his second win of the season and joining the two-win club with Ramsey and Langston. Langston’s impressive charge from the back of the field to finish second saved him valuable championship points, and Ramsey’s third place finish kept him right in the points chase.
We’ll pick up with the west coast boys again in Dallas…

AMP’D Mobile AMA 125cc Western Regional Supercross Championship (After 6 of 8 rounds): 1. Andrew Short (118/2 wins); 2. Grant Langston (116/2 wins); 3. Nathan Ramsey (107/2 wins); 4. Billy Laninovich (99); 5. Mike Alessi (95); 6. Ryan Villopoto (94); 7. Brett Metcalfe (91); 8. Paul Carpenter (78); 9. Darcy Lange (55); 10. Jake Weimer (52).

     St. Louis marked the opening round of the Eastern Regional Supercross Lites Series. Many folks considered Honda’s Davi Millsaps to be the odds-on favorite, but with this season’s east coast line-up, even a talent such as his was in question when the gate dropped.
     Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s replacement rider Chris Gosselaar grabbed the holeshot in the main event, followed by Red Bull KTM’s Josh Hansen (who lost the Eastern title in a tie-breaker to Grant Langston last year) and Boost Mobile/Yamaha of Troy’s Branden Jesseman, who has had a rough go of it basically since he won the Eastern title in 2003. Millsaps was eighth by the time the riders crossed the finish line for the first time.
     For the first five laps or so, the front three remained in that order. That was until Millsaps worked his way around Jesseman into third on lap six, and followed that up with a pass on Gosselaar for second only a lap later. Then Millsaps set out after Hansen in the lead. Three laps later, he had not only caught Hansen, but he passed him, and that was that. Millsaps took the win, followed by Gosselaar in second and Jesseman in third.
     Last year, Josh Grant had a couple shining moments, but spent much of the season on the ground. After having a crash relapse at the east coast season opener in St. Louis, where he endoed in the whoops and hit a trackside sign, he returned determined to do better in Atlanta. Not only did Grant manage to keep the rubber side down, he also took his first-ever Supercross Lites main event win.
     “Outdoors was kind of my thing, because that’s we did as amateurs–we never really rode Supercross–so it was kind of new to me last year,” Grant said. “I struggled a little bit with injuries trying to rush in and trying to do well for my team. The more I ride the Supercross track, the more I get comfortable with everything. I put a lot of time in this year, and I feel that it’s paying off.”
     Millsaps hung on for second after crashing out of the lead, and Ecuadorian Martin Davalos finished third.
Round three in Indy was a Millsaps/Grant repeat, except in reverse, as Grant got out front and pulled away, only to crash part way through the race and hand the win to Millsaps.
     “It was flip-flopped,” Millsaps said. “I crashed last week in the lead, and he crashed this week. It’s just, when I got next to him, it reminded me of last week. I kind of backed off a little bit, but then I stayed the same pace as him for a while and then I started making stupid mistakes, and it cost me a couple seconds. I figured I’d give it a charge at the end and I figured I could catch him, and he went down unfortunately, and I didn’t have to.”
     We’ll pick up with the east coast Lites series in Daytona in the next issue.

AMP’D Mobile/AMA 125cc Eastern Regional Points Standings (After 3 of 7 rounds): 1. Davi Millsaps (72/2 wins); 2. Chris Gosselaar (54); 3. Branden Jesseman (52); 4. Josh Grant (47/1 win); 5. Bobby Kiniry (41); 6. Josh Hansen (38); 7. Sean Hamblin (36); 8. Teddy Maier (33); 9. Martin Davalos (31); 10. Tommy Hahn (29).