Sign Of The (Lap) Times: Houston

February 13, 2007, 8:10am

Supercross class

Houston was a fun race to watch, wasn’t it? Monster Energy Kawasaki’s James Stewart finally didn’t get a good start, and a rider who needs nothing but confidence right now—Kevin Windham—got the holeshot. The stage was set for some good racing, but it only lasted six laps. That’s when Stewart took over the lead and took off. Chad Reed climbed up to second, Tim Ferry was third.

Finish	Best Lap Time	Rider	Bike
1	50.407	James Stewart	Kawasaki
4	51.598	Kevin Windham	Honda
2	51.723	Chad Reed	Yamaha
3	52.008	Tim Ferry	Kawasaki
8	52.458	Ivan Tedesco	Suzuki
5	52.596	Travis Preston	Honda
7	52.910	Heath Voss	Honda
6	52.973	Michael Byrne	Suzuki
10	53.306	David Vuillemin	Honda
19	53.784	Nathan Ramsey	Yamaha
12	54.016	Tyler Evans	Suzuki
9	54.215	Paul Carpenter	Kawasaki
14	54.363	Bryan Johnson	Honda
17	54.394	Jeff Gibson	Kawasaki
11	54.489	Cole Siebler	Honda
13	54.496	Manuel Rivas	Kawasaki
16	54.862	Ryan Clark	Honda
15	54.956	Jacob Marsack	Kawasaki
18	55.901	Kyle Lewis	Honda

The fastest time of the night belonged to #7 (50.407), but surprisingly, the second fastest time was set by the SoBe No Fear/Samsung Honda rider Windham (51.598), who Ricky Carmichael said would have a “breakout race” that evening from the announcing booth. But on lap six, Windham’s 53.728 was too slow for Stewart’s 51.077. That two seconds helped Stewart take the lead from Windham, and he never looked back.

Kevin was the second-fastest 450 in Houston!

We’ve been getting some requests to see riders’ average lap times throughout the main. Okay, James Stewart’s average lap time through 20 laps of racing was a 52.731, which is faster then seventh-place finisher Heath Voss’ fastest lap time of the night.
Second-place finisher Chad Reed, who looked a bit off all night long, had an average lap time of 53.761. And how about 13th-place finisher Manuel Rivas, who got a lift to Texas from Cernic’s Kawasaki? Well, the Spaniard’s average lap time of the night was a 56.624.

Supercross Lites

I’d like to say that we saw something different in the Lites class this past weekend, but we’ll probably have to wait till Atlanta for that. Villopoto was again the fastest 250F on the track, and his best lap of 51.088 was the second-fastest time of the night—inlucing BOTH classes! Yamaha of Troy’s Jason Lawrence continues to keep RV honest, and his fastest time of the night was again very close to Villopoto, making Lawrence the third-fastest rider of the night out of everyone! These young riders are really putting in some impressive laps this season. As for average lap times, RV maintained a 53.125 while J-Law had a 53.610 and Josh Grant had a 53.850.

Finish	Best Lap Time	Rider	Bike
1	51.088	Ryan Villopoto	Kawasaki
2	51.099	Jason Lawrence	Yamaha
3	52.477	Josh Grant	Honda
4	53.013	Josh Hill	Yamaha
5	53.299	Martin Davalos	KTM
6	53.302	Jake Weimer	Honda
7	53.614	Matt Lemoine	Yamaha
20	53.835	Michael LaPaglia	Yamaha
9	53.836	Chris Gosselaar	Kawasaki
11	54.554	Dusty Klatt	Yamaha
10	54.688	Troy Adams	Suzuki
8	54.786	Kyle Cunningham	Yamaha
12	55.023	Josh Hansen	KTM
17	55.749	Joaquim Rodrigues	Kawasaki
13	56.608	Dennis Jonon	KTM
15	56.991	Chris Blose	Yamaha
14	57.128	Brad Graham	Kawasaki
21	57.890	Vernon McKiddie	Yamaha
19	57.949	Michael Willard	KTM
16	58.002	Ryan Grantom	Yamaha

Being the fastest 250F rider every weekend is a good reason to smile!

One thing to note: RC was saying in the press box that lap times would probably go down through the evening, but James Stewart said the opposite after his heat race win—that the track would break down and would slow down. Even though Ricky must have had a crystal ball to spot so many things (including pretty much calling out how rough one section was the lap before Windham crashed there) James was right about the track slowing down. That helped RV51 and J-Law go podium speed compared to the 450s that followed their Lites race.

We have San Diego this weekend, and then we get to start checking on the East Region times and see how the likes of Broc Hepler, Brett Metcalfe, Tommy Hahn, Mike Alessi and Ryan Dungey stack up to the 450s!