Even though he has yet to win a National Championship on this end of the world, Chad Reed showed that he has the heart of a champion, as he announced that he would donate a significant portion of his U.S. Open $100,000 paycheck to his friend and countryman Jamie Brockman, who was badly injured at a National Motocross earlier this year and is still awaiting a trip back home to Australia.
In order to win the overall U.S. Open Championship, Reed just had to win tonight’s main event. In order to win the main event, Reed had to fight off two-time U.S. Open Champion and 10-time National MX/SX Champion Ricky Carmichael. Carmichael put up a much harder fight tonight, as he adjusted some things on his motorcycle, but even with the further development of his new setup, he made just enough mistakes to allow Reed a pretty comfortable win in the end. People are already talking about Carmichael possibly being the underdog coming into this year’s AMA Supercross Series, which would be unusual to say the least for a defending champion of any kind, much less a three-time defending champ.
Reed’s teammate and last night’s winner David Vuillemin didn’t get off to the start he enjoyed last night, but still raced to a strong third-place finish, just ahead of holeshot artist Ernesto Fonseca and defending U.S. Open champ Mike LaRocco.
There were three 125cc motorcycles in tonight’s Pro Circuit 125cc main event, and one of them belonged to Andrew Short. Short came from behind in the main to pass Mike Brown, in his Boost Mobile/Yamah/Troy Racing YZ250F debut, for the lead, only for Brown to punt him off the track around the sweeping first turn only two laps from the end of the race, much to the crowd’s chagrin. Brown went on to win the main over Kelly Smith and Ryan Mills. Brown was booed as he crossed the finish line, and again on the podium, although he didn’t make matters much better for himself when he said, “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and then followed that up with, “Nobody likes a winner.”
Smith got the championship with his 3-2 showing, and nobody booed him despite the fact that he won, disproving Brown’s theory. Brown finished second overall, and MotoXXX’s Troy Adams finished third. Even though all three of those riders rode four-strokes to their podium positions, their trophies all featured Pro Circuit-replica two-stroke exhaust pipes.
Nicco Izzi picked up where he left off last night to win the 85cc class not only for the night, but overall, after once again going 2-1 on the night. Izzi’s 94 total points earned him the championship over Josh Hill (80) and Will Hahn (78).
And in a last piece of news, multi-time Four-Stroke National Champion Paul Carpenter will soon be announced as a member of Team Chevy Trucks Kawasaki, according to a source close to the team. He will join Michael Byrne and James Stewart on the squad for the 2004 season.
To see the complete results, please visit the U.S. Open website at www.ussx.com, and for the complete story, be sure to pick up this week’s Cycle News.
