Henry Gains a Point on Ward at Nashville Supermoto

Doug Henry left round nine of the AMA Supermoto Championship Series, held at the Music City Motorplex in Nashville, Tennessee, still with an outside shot at winning the overall title after going 4-1 in the evening’s two Supermoto-class main events. The Graves Motorsports Yamaha-sponsored rider came back from a fall in the opening race, while running in second place behind his teammate Mark Burkhart, to salvage a fourth place finish, and then claimed the win in the second race after Burkhart’s bike broke while leading at the mid-way point.

Series leader Jeff Ward (above) protected his points lead, which was at 32 points coming in to the Nashville event, by riding conservatively to a second place finish in the first race, behind Burkhart, but turned up the heat in the second race when Henry inherited the lead from Burkhart, after Burkhart's bike broke. Ward seemed on the ragged edge a couple of times while in pursuit of Henry and lost it in the final turn of the final lap, handing second place to his Troy Lee Designs/Honda teammate Chris Fillmore.

The bottom line was that Henry gained one point on Wardy in the standings with one round remaining in the chase, that coming in Long Beach, California, on November 5th.

In the Lites division, Graves Motorsports Yamaha’s Brandon Currie made a last lap, last turn pass on Troy Lee Designs/Honda’s Cassidy Anderson to take the win, which means that Anderson will have to wait until Long Beach to have another chance at wrapping up the title. Anderson came into the event needing only to finish ahead of Currie to clinch the title and looked like he might get the job done after grabbing the holeshot and leading every lap except for the one that counted. However, Currie snuck up on the Honda rider and made the last-ditch pass work for the win.

Team Red Bull KTM’s John Lewis got his first-ever win in the Unlimited class on the super-fast Nashville circuit after working his way through a first-turn jam and then leading from the first lap on. Unlimited-class points leader Benny Carlosn, also on a Red Bull KTM, seemed content to ride out the race in second and maintain the inside track to the championship, while GP Husqvarna’s David Baffeleuf rode solo in third to the finish.