Everything is coming together for the AMA/Toyota Motocross
Championship presented by FMF. The rivalries, the battles, the points, it’s all
coming together, and the first set of motos at the Unbound Energy/Honda
National at Millville only raised the drama to another level. After an exciting first set of motos, the
fans braced themselves for a big showdown in the second half of the day. But then the skies opened
and the track quickly turned into a quagmire.
And that
ended that, because the mud motos turned the race into a one-sided Suzuki affair,
with Ricky Carmichael destroying the 450 class and Broc Hepler making his way
back to the front with a win in the 250F class.
| Mud was a pretty big factor in the second motos at Millville.
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There is no doubt now of Carmichael
and Hepler’s superiority in the mud. Hepler won his moto by some 40 seconds,
but for the record, he had passed his way to the lead before the rain came
down. As for
Carmichael, he completely
destroyed the field in the muddy second moto. We mean DESTROYED. Ricky lapped
EVERY SINGLE rider in the race. He lapped 39 riders! Looks like one more
ridiculous notch in the very oversized belt Mr. Carmichael must wear to fit all
of the notches in it.
But the first motos were so good!
James Stewart looked very game at Millville.
Coming off of his win at Washougal, he was putting in practice times a full two
seconds faster than Carmichael on Sunday
morning. Then he took the early lead from Racer X Holeshot Winner Justin Buckalew
and took off while Carmichael dealt with
another bad start. By the third lap Carmichael
had moved to third behind Stewart and Chad Reed, but then he got a gift:
Stewart crashed while leading, and then Reed lost the header pipe on his
Yamaha. Carmichael took the lead from the
fallen Stewart and ailing Reed and never looked back. Stewart worked his way
back into second at the finish ahead of Reed. Could Carmichael
have gotten Stewart straight-up? The second moto would tell the tale … but then
it rained.
| RC knew the start would be super-important for the muddy second 450 moto, so he went out and got one.
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Carmichael
knew the start was critical since the track was a complete mess for moto two. And
so he nailed the Racer X Holeshot, but Stewart was soon into second. Before
long there was carnage everywhere, especially in a gnarly off-camber corner
that trapped Michael Byrne, and then a bunch of other riders who went looking
for a line around him. Soon the section was nearly clogged, and Carmichael actually had to stop on the track a look for a
line. Stewart tried to take advantage but fell. The next time around the
section was really bad and Stewart found himself stuck even worse. The field
was really shaken up by now as the track became nearly impassable. Carmichael rode away unchallenged, David Vuillemin moved
to second and the third spot became a huge mix up between riders like Chris
Whitcraft (yes!) and Josh Demuth (yup!) before finally Kevin Windham emerged
with third.
Other favorites struggled big. Reed
crashed on the first lap and lost his gloves and goggles, then got stuck on the
off-camber twice. He finished 27th. Davi Millsaps finished fourth in
moto one but was way back in moto two. It was a wild moto, which culminated
when Carmichael passed Vuillemin just past the
first turn late in the moto, putting the second-place rider a lap down. The Millville faithful
cheered big.
| The old mud riding skills of David Vuillemin made a return at Millville, as he took second overall.
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“It wasn’t my goal to lap
everybody,” said
Carmichael. “Everyone just
had problems. I think this was good practice for Everts at the Motocross des
Nations.”
In the first 250F moto, Josh Grant
grabbed the Racer X holeshot but Andrew Short went past him and picked up right
where he left off at Washougal—with the lead. Grant, Ryan Villopoto, Hepler and
Alessi were all swapping the next spots, with RV getting second and Hepler
passing Alessi late to get to third. This put Villopoto into the 250F points
lead by just one point.
Everything started as usual for
moto two as Grant grabbed another Racer X holeshot. This time Hepler was on the
gas early and he got around Villopoto and Grant early to take the lead. Short
moved into second and was about to attempt a run at Hepler, but then the skies
opened up and it started raining really, really hard. Everyone’s lap times
dropped quite a bit, but Hepler handled it with some ease.
“I grew up racing in
Pennsylvania, but now that I spend my winters in
California it seems like
you lose your edge in the mud,” said Hepler. “I knew once it started to rain I
had it because of the vision. I’m just racing for pride now.”
As the rain continued to fall,
Short and Villopoto struggled and started moving backwards. Alessi got into
second which allowed him to pick up huge points over Villopoto. Star Racing’s
Matt Goerke put in a great ride in the mud from out of the pack to finish third.
But there was still plenty of controversy, as a protest regarding stuff like
outside assistance in the mud hung over the final results. The AMA says
everything will be official by Monday.
This much is already official: the
racing is fun to watch in both classes. Maybe next time the rain will stay away
and we’ll pick up the same battles at Broome-Tioga next weekend.