Red Bud Saturday Practice Report
It's on just as hard here at Red Bud as it has been at previous events on the AMA/Toyota Motocross Championship tour. James Stewart is back in a big way by posting the fastest lap time of the day here in practice. James stood nearly two seconds quicker than Ricky Carmichael for most of the second practice session, until RC busted out a really hard lap late in the session, coming up about a tenth short of Stewart's time. But then, at the same time Carmichael was out matching Stewart's speed, Stewart had set out on a lap to top it all, and he lowered his previous best by another second and a half, giving him a clear edge on times for the day.
However things could be totally different tomorrow when you consider this is just 1.5 seconds over the course of a 2:41 second lap. There's plenty of time to lose or make up on a big track like this.
And the riders in the Lites class will be looking for that speed, because it's totally stacked in that division. Ben Townley actually put in the fastest time of that group, which is impressive. But even more impressive was that the top six riders in the Lites had their fastest laps seperated by, get this, just seven tenths of a second. That's six riders within seven tenths!
Townley later topped Martin Davalos to win his qualifier.
One name missing from the second practice rankings was Ryan Villopoto, who fell and knocked his transponder loose. RV is fine but his lap times were not known at the end of the session.
The 250F riders won't be jumping LaRocco's leap this year. Mike Alessi tried it in the first session by going way, way outside in the preceding corner and still cased it hard, flattening his rear wheel. No other 250F rider tried it after that.
Also looking strong is Chad Reed and Tim Ferry, who had the third and fourth fastest times. Townley and the sox pack of Lites riders came next.
Track looks good, crowd is huge, it's on for sure tomorrow. Tune into the live webcast at www.mxnationals.com and check out www.RacerXfilms.com for the practice video.
