Villopoto Notches Another Win

Jean Turner | March 27, 2010

JACKSONVILLE, FL, MAR. 27 – The night didn’t start off well for Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Ryan Villopoto… a crash in the first practice session sent him limping to the Asterisk Mobile Medical Unit where it was revealed that he had a broken toe. RV opted to forgo the second practice session and came into the evening program with a sub-par gate pick. Fortunately, however, Villopoto was able to rebound from his misfortune right out of the gate. He was off to a strong start in his heat race, quickly moved into the lead and never looked back. And the main event read nearly the same for the factory Kawasaki rider.

Ryan Dungey didn’t allow Villopoto to take a very big bite out of his points lead, however, as the Rockstar Makita Suzuki rider bested Kevin Windham to take second. In doing so, however, Dungey nearly cost himself the race at one point. As he was setting up to duck to the inside of Windham, Dungey got out of control coming into a 180-degree turn, fumbled and tipped over, clipping the rear wheel of Windham in the process. Dungey was able to recover without losing ground and, fortunately, Windham didn’t go down with him.

Windham, of the GEICO Powersports Honda team, came into the evening program with a lot of momentum. K-Dub set the hot lap in practice and was the only rider to break into the 48-second range. He was running strong in the main event and didn’t make things easy for Dungey, who ultimately found his way around. From there, Windham was left to fend off his hard-charging Honda teammate, Trey Canard, who was closing in on the lead three.

The Windham/Canard battle in the last laps of the race was certainly one of the highlights of the Jacksonville Supercross. Canard made several moves on Windham, but the seasoned vet was careful to protect his lines and keep Canard at bay. In the last turn before the checkered flag, however, Canard made a last-ditch effort pulling even with Windham as they approached the finish line. Canard was just able to stick his wheel over the finish line a millisecond ahead of Windham to nab the final podium spot. Windham was left to collect a disappointed fourth.

Valli Motorsports Yamaha’s Ivan Tedesco rounded out the top five ahead of Red Bull Honda’s Davi Millsaps and San Manuel Yamaha’s Josh Hill. Tommy Hahn, Justin Brayton and Michael Byrne rounded out the top 10 in Jacksonville.