Bench Racing Ammo: January

January 30, 2007 11:36am

The month of January has been, for lack of a better word, green. Seven of the eight winners in the Amp’d Mobile AMA Supercross series have been aboard Kawasakis—Monster Energy Kawasakis, to be exact. Not only have they dominated in the win column, they’re dominating in laps led, as well. Check out the numbers below:

January’s AMA Supercross Class Laps Led:

James Stewart       53
Ricky Carmichael  19
Chad Reed              8

January’s AMA Supercross Lites Class Laps Led:

Ryan Villopoto            42
Christophe Pourcel   17
Steve Boniface            1

What's eating Kevin Windham?

Obviously, Kawasaki has quite simply dominated the Lites class, leading every lap of the season up to this point, not to mention winning every race. Now that’s impressive.

So what the hell happened to everyone else? Seriously. Wasn’t Kevin Windham supposed to be a contender this year? His finishes are 9-8-5-10, and he’s sixth in points! That’s less than spectacular for a veteran contender like K-Dub.

Or how about Ryan Clark? The Team Solitiare rider looked to be on the verge of possibly having the best season of his career, and so far, due mostly to a lot of bad luck, he’s one-for-four in just making the Supercross main event! Is it the new qualifying format? What is it?

Is it the hand?

Or how about Ivan Tedesco? Of course he’s still healing from a hand injury, but a 14-7-7-14 isn’t really filling the shoes of an absent RC. Ivan has the speed; he just needs to stay off the ground.

Let’s move on to the Lites class. After an awesome off-season which seen him take a very dominant win at the Rockstar Energy U.S. Open, SoBe/Samsung Mobile Honda’s Josh Grant doesn’t seem to be the same rider. He finished 22-22-3-2 and is 10th in points. Those results don’t bode well for a championship. This was supposed to be his season.

Grant is 10th in points

Or how about Troy Adams? He finished 6-13-7-11 in the first four rounds and is eighth in points. He is the highest-placing Suzuki rider, though.

And what’s going on with Martin Davalos. The new Red Bull KTM rider came out swinging in Toronto and easily won, but that was only an exhibition race. But his West Region results haven’t been that impressive, though he too has had some bum luck. He’s currently 16th in points.

Finally, Josh Hansen: Through four races (which could be half of his entire racing season), Lil’ Hanny sits ninth in points with no podium finishes.

Another issue that needs addressed is the short lap times. I touched on this earlier today in Scott USA’s Sign of the Lap Times, but seriously, a sub-15-minute main event? There was a lot of talk about close call Chad Reed had when he tried lapping Eric Sorby on the outside—wasn’t that on like lap seven or eight? Looking back at the lap charts, they started lapping riders on lap six! And since they eliminated the semis, this gives some extra time to run a longer main event, right? The races at Phoenix and San Francisco were great--we just want longer motos! So what do you guys think? Send your thoughts to letters@racerxill.com.