Houston Practice Report

Deep in the heart of Texas Amp’d Mobile Supercross roars toward its first break since Christmas – but not before another showdown here in Houston. The track here looks tough thanks to two rugged whoop sections. It’s almost like Dirt Wurx wanted to make up for the lack of big whoops earlier this season by doubling up tonight. Okay, maybe not. But the whoops are tough, particularly the set leading up the the finish-line jump.

Usually the whoops are the domain of Chad Reed. But remember, Chad is riding like a one-armed man. Reed said this morning that the shoulder has come a long way, it won’t stop him from winning, and that it didn’t really hold him back too much in Detroit last weekend. But that was all before he crashed in the second practice today and appeared hurt again. He got up and logged more laps, but he was off the pace.

On the pace was James Stewart, who was a good second faster than Ricky Carmichael with his best lap in the second practice. There are several tricky jump combinations on the track this weekend to go along with those whoops. So, is that going to allow James to jump stuff that no one else can, blitz the whoops and pull away? Or will he throw it all away? We’ll see.

Carmichael looked to be having some trouble in the big whoops near the finish. No doubt the team is working on a fix for that right now.

In the 250F class, Davi Millsaps needs a 17th place finish to win the East Region Lites title tonight. But he was quite a bit faster than everyone in both practices today. Josh Grant was second fastest. You would think that Millsaps was making his time in the whoops, but Grant’s been working hard at that and he looked pretty quick there, too, just not quite as smooth or consistent. On the 250Fs, attacking the timing sections consistently could be the key.

So someone will hold a Lites #1 plate tonight. They will put it on a Honda. That's the way the math works.

That’s about it for Houston in practice. Tune into the webcast tonight at www.supercross.cc.com and watch the Speed TV broadcast at of the 450 class tomorrow at 6 p.m. EST.

And ya’ll come back now ya’ hear (we’ll have a race report up tonight).