James Stewart capped off the 2007 Amp’d Mobile AMA Supercross and FIM World Supercross GP Series with his 13th win at Sam Boyd Stadium on a cool and breezy night in Las Vegas. Stewart, on his Jeremy Albrecht-tuned Kawasaki KX450, had, in his words, “20 perfect laps,” en route to a start-to-finish win.
Stewart grabbed the holeshot and slowly pulled away from San Manuel Yamaha’s Chad Reed, eventually crossing the finish line 16.458 seconds ahead of Reed, who gave Stewart a little bit of a race the first few laps before seeing him start to inch away.
SoBe No Fear/Samsung Mobile/Honda’s Kevin Windham got on the podium again in third. Windham got around Monster Kawasaki’s Tim Ferry early in the race and actually reeled in and passed Reed, but Windham couldn’t keep the Yamaha rider behind him. Reed got him right back and broke away.
Team Makita Suzuki’s Ivan Tedesco finished fourth, followed by Honda’s Andrew Short, Ferry, Xyience MDK/Honda’s David Vuillemin, and Moto XXX’s Josh Summery.
Honda rider Heath Voss finished ninth, but it wasn’t enough to beat out Cernics Kawasaki’s Paul Carpenter for second place in the privateer challenge for the season.
After finishing on the podium for the first time last week in Seattle, Honda’s Davi Millsaps crashed and knocked himself out for a moment. Early word from the Honda pits is that he’ll be okay.
In the Dave Coombs Memorial East-West Shootout, Makita Suzuki’s Ryan Dungey was the surprise winner – surprise in that many were expecting a dual between East champ Ben Townley and West champ Ryan Villopoto, but neither Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki riders made it past the first lap, with Townley dropping out with a thrown chain and Villopoto with a damaged back brake after trading paint with other bikes through the first turn.
Dungey found himself in the early lead but with Yamaha’s Josh Hill right behind him. They battled for a few laps until Hill got a little too aggressive in a turn and centerpunched Dungey, who went sailing off the track. Hill, however, got the short end of the stick and went down and had trouble re-lighting his bike. Dungey regrouped in the lead with SoBe No Fear/Samsung Mobile/Honda’s Jake Weimer right behind him, but Dungey managed to pull away and take the win 4.6 seconds ahead of Weimer.
Third went to Red Bull KTM’s Martin Davalos, making it two West riders on the podium, but it was the East’s Dungey the big winner.
After getting a bad start, Yamaha of Troy’s Jason Lawrence worked his way up to fourth, followed by Honda’s Tommy Hahn. Josh Grant finished sixth, followed by Chris Gosselaar, Ryan Morais, Darcy Lange and Justin Brayton, who rounded out the top 10 overall.
