by Chase Stallo
Hangtown 450 Moto 1 Report
Saturday, May 19, 2012 | 5:05 PM
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PrintHe’s back! After a three-year layoff (excluding a one-race effort in 2010), James Stewart made his triumphant return to the Lucas Oil Pro Motcross Championship with a resounding opening moto statement, quickly silencing the critics with a commanding moto 1 victory.
Chaparral Honda’s Andrew Short got a leg up on the field, grabbing the opening moto holeshot but was quickly amassed by Stewart. From there it was the James Stewart show, as he quickly opened up a sizable lead over the field. With Stewart running away, 2010 Champion Ryan Dungey was trying to regroup after getting buried mid-pack on the start.
Behind Stewart the battle for second was in full effect. Stewart’s former JGR running mate Davi Millsaps, and current Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Brett Metcalfe locked horns with Andrew Short early in the moto. Metcalfe made a quick charge to the front, getting by Millsaps and Short, but was run down late by a rejuvenated Millsaps. Meanwhile Dungey was slicing his way through the pack, picking off one contender after another. Dungey worked his way up to third as the first moto came to a close.
Brett Metcalfe rebounded from a sub-par SX season with a fourth in moto 1. Andrew Short slid back to fifth after running in second early in the moto. Broc Tickle, Mike Alessi, Tommy Hahn, Josh Grant and Jake Weimer would round out the top-10.
Other Notes:
- 39-year-old Ryan Hughes’ return to racing began on a rough note. Hughes would crash twice before pulling off. Ironically he would finish the moto, you guessed it, 39th.
- Tyla Rattray has some big shoes to fill replacing defending champion Ryan Villopoto. Well, things didn’t quite go Rattray’s way in his 450 debut. Rattray retired early in the moto with a reported broken hand.
450 Moto 1 Results:
- James Stewart
- Davi Millsaps
- Ryan Dungey
- Brett Metcalfe
- Andrew Short
- Broc Tickle
- Mike Alessi
- Tommy Hahn
- Josh Grant
- Jake Weimer
- Nico Izzi
- Robby Kiniry
- Kyle Chisholm
- Sean Collier
- Vince Friese
- Nick Wey
- Jimmy Albertson
- Michael Byrne
- Matt Lemoine
- Ben LaMay
- Billy Laninovich
- Les Smith
- Derek Anderson
- Justin Brayton
- Ryan Sipes
- Austin Howell
- Justin Sipes
- Kyle Regal
- Dusty Pipes
- Jason Thomas
- Preston Mull
- Sean Borkenhagen
- Dalton Carlson
- Michael Giese
- Dakota Kessler
- Josh Greco
- Blake Ballard
- Kevin Rookstool
- Ryan Hughes
- Tyla Rattray
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Go James , I never doubted you ! You still the man .
Good luck
Barry in the uk
Great racing Just got done with the so called 250 class. It was great when they finnally got the leaderboard up and going! Now is it possible to get Closed captioning working? I hope Ashley and I are not the only deaf people here??
Wow Bagget did it again and I thought Roczen and Barcia were flying!!!!
LETS RACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Millsaps continues to impress! He wasnt just praying for the white flag, he was stretching it out!! Nice freakin job!
@SCRUBTHIS where are you?
Yea where you at scrubthis! I told ya so! JBS1!!
I was impressed with Milsaps ride, good job. James looked very smooth out there like he hadn't missed a beat. I was also impressed with Metcalfe's ride too. Good job guys!
It's too bad for Tyla Rattay,,get MIke Alessi on that factory Kawi!!! He did great with his motoconcepts bike but in my opinion would do much better on that factory Kawasaki!!!
you guys are all gonna grow to miss RV this summer....this is gonna get boring in a hurry!
Way to go James! Ha Ha scrubthis you know nothing about MX.
Sloan, I hope you aren't licking your toilet seat after the second moto !!
Amazing turn of events. Factory Suzuki went from being the weakest team in supercross to potentially the strongest team in the nationals.
I think James just told me & The Professor what we can do with our clutch fingers........lol. Way to go James, Metty looked good, Grant starting out solid. Cool beans.
Still another moto to go, and it could be a whole different story......Dungey gets a start and he will make it a hell of a race i think!! Very happy for JS on a near perfect first moto back into MX........it's only one moto win for sure, but i wouyld LOVE to hear from all the people who said he was gonna "get smoked" and had no chance at Hangtown, and there were a lot of you!!!
Here comes Moto 2......
LETS RACE!!!!!
Stewart looked good on the Suzuki no sign of stamina problems, Milsaps rode great,pulled away from Dungey ..Dungey needs a better start to try and run with JS. Metty and Short both rode solid. Tickle was better thena i thought and Alessi needs to stop lookin gback and ride forward....Give it up to Hughes for trying..I remember Cooper coming back and rideing the series on a KTM 520 when he was 40...
I do too BD25, big difference, Cooper holeshotted the whole year, very cool to see him run top 10 often.... Yeah, that was a bit of a cheater motor,but still cool!
Stewart was a surprise, congrats to him. At first I though Dungey just didn't have it for some reason but I guess it was just a bad start. Good luck everyone in the second moto!
look at my username!!
Really good first moto of the year. Stewart was impressive. More impressive was Millsaps. Dungey was also looking good, but a bad start hampered his race.
What happened to Ryan Hughes? He got a 39th in the first moto and did not start the second moto. Bummer, I always cross my fingers when old racers give it a go...I was hoping he would crack the top twenty.
moto 2 just over...where are all the Stewart doubters
Sloan, Dude how is that tongue ?? you need to do what you said, BUT , I still say RD takes the title. Hangtown is his worst track- somehow hangtown and RD don't get along very well. JS did look smoother and hit his marks better, I am glad he won another one
Congrats to Stewart. speed was never a doubt ..stamina is good...still not going to hand him the title after the first race...Dungey made a mistake on lap 12 ...cant be doin that and win...Alessi finished were I thought he would..Good ride for Short getin by Metty....
Every year the fantards have to be reminded that Hangtown (especially when it is the series opener,) means nothing. Most top riders only aim for the podium, but a top 5 is also considered acceptable. This is a traditional part of the American motocross series, but it is always the litmus test that separates the true followers of the sport from the gibbering douchebags.
Since Stewart has been shirking his contractual obligation at JGR to ride his Suzuki outdoors for WEEKS before Hangtown, he would need Dungey to have real problems like a DNF or a finish below 15th before Hangtown would mean anything.
Hangtown meant JS has RD covered by a mile, he trail rode and beat the Dunge and I now believe the Yamaha and JS were not a good fit. RD lacks the sheer speed of JS and RV that is obvious especially on that KTM.
Claxton put down the crack pipe. Great opening round. Both RD and JS seemed to run a similar pace today. Sucks that RD Lost so much time with the lapped traffic. Both guys being on new bikes will improve in the next few weeks. I think by the 3rd round they will both be pretty dialed in for the rest of the series.
It is kinda quiet in here.... Where are all the JS haters?
Congrats again to James Stewart!
But why are certain Stew-fans looking for those that doubted James after moto 1? I for one stayed the hell away from anything moto-related so as to not see what happened in moto 2. Maybe some others did as well?
This is going to be a good year in both classes. James loves Hangtown and as far as I have seen it never seems to correlate to the rest of the series. See Dungey 2010 and Baggett last year......or RV last year.
Again though, the James fans always tell the"haters" to be quiet and seem to want that to happen until it does. The "haters" would be thrilled if the Stew-fans stayed quiet and wouldn't be asking "where is so and so?". Actually, we would probably prefer if they all just started watching the racing and commenting on it without the worries about hyping a guy still after a win.
Great ride James!......and Dungey. Don't dispel what he did in moto 1. Time to just watch and enjoy a good series. My pick is still Dungey and even with James' great ride I am not worried about 24-0 by any stretch.
I will point out that at Hangtown the lap times don't even go down from start to finish so this isn't a track that gets all that rough or demanding physically. James and Dungey's 15th lap in moto 2 were faster than their 2nd and 3rd laps in that moto. You won't see that at some of the other tracks......especially when the heat and humidity are in play.
2011 Freestone, Dungey's 13th and 14th laps were around 5 seconds slower than his first few laps in moto 2 before he ran out of gas....just as an example.