ST. LOUIS, MAR 3: Ricky Carmichael made a victorious return to the Amp’d Mobile World Supercross GP/Amp’d Mobile AMA Supercross Series with an impressive win before a crowd of 58,131 at round nine of the series held at the Edwards Jones Dome in St Louis, tonight.
Carmichael’s work was made a little easier, however, when San Manuel Yamaha’s Chad Reed and Kawasaki’s James Stewart took each other out on the opening lap of the race, leaving the Suzuki-mounted Carmichael a clear shot at the lead.
Reed grabbed the holeshot to start the race but then tangled with Stewart when the two riders entered a bowl turn before the finish of the first lap, dropping them both to the rear of the pack.
Carmichael, who had been working his way up from a poor start, moved into the lead on lap four of the 20-lap main event and then rode a consistent race to finish well ahead of Stewart at the checkers.
To ad insult to injury, Stewart, after working his way up from 16th, put a block pass on Reed to take over second at the halfway mark.
Reed recovered to finish third, while Sobe/Samsung/No Fear/ Honda’s Kevin Windham and Yamaha’s Nathan Ramsey rounded out the top five.
“Every week I’m getting pushed around,” said Reed, in reference to his collision with Stewart. “It’s racing but he thinks he can walk all over me and I’m gonna put an end to that.”
Carmichael was happy to take the win, but gave plenty of credit to Reed and Stewart.
“I don’t know if I would have caught them after spotting them all those positions,” said Carmichael, referring to his poor start. “I saw Chad and James go down, so that helped, but I saw Chad get back up right behind me. I got into the lead but I was looking forward to racing them. I was in my zone tonight but I got a gift.”
In the Lites division, Ben Townley made up for last week’s disappointment in Atlanta by taking a hard-fought win.
Townley led most of the 15-lap race, but had to fend off serious threats from Last week’s winner, Ryan Dungey, and Townley’s Monster Pro Circuit Kawasaki teammate Darcy Lange before the race was done.
Lange actually took the lead at one time, but Townley came back with an authoritative pass to move Lange back into the runner up position.
While Townley and Lange were going at it up front, the Suzuki-mounted Dungey ran a solid race in third and was slowly reeling in the duo.
On lap eight, Lange made a mistake, allowing Dungey to move into second.
However, on lap 12, Dungey crashed while trying to make a pass on Townley for the lead, giving second back to Lange.
Lange made a pass to take the lead at the end of lap 14, but was quickly re-passed by Townley with one lap remaining. Lange closed to within a bike length of his teammate before a spectacular crash, ironically in the same spot as Dungey’s earlier crash, ended his chance at a win.
Townley went on to take the win, followed by Yamaha riders Ryan Morais and Matt Goerke, in second and third.
Lange recovered to finish sixth, but Dungey had trouble starting his bike after his crash and finished18th.
Supercross Final:
1. Ricky Carmichael (Suz)
2. James Stewart (Kaw)
3. Chad Reed (Yam)
4. Kevin Windham (Hon)
5. Nathan Ramsey (Yam)
6. David Vuillemin (Hon)
7. Paul Carpenter (Kaw)
8. Heath Voss (Hon)
9. Eric Sorby (Kaw)
10. Cole Siebler (Hon)
Supercross Lites Final:
1. Ben Townley (Kaw)
2. Ryan Morais (Yam)
3. Matt Goerke (Yam)
4. Mike Alessi (KTM)
5. Broc Tickle (Yam)
6. Darcy Lange (Kaw)
7. Jeff Alessi (KTM)
8. Ryan Sipes (Hon)
9. Zach Osborne (KTM)
10. Justin Brayton (Yam)
