If you had to rate the top 25 riders on the Amp’d Mobile SX tour so far in 2007, who would you vote first? Okay, not a lot of debate there. What about second—the part-time RC or the #22 of Chad Reed? And where would you put Ryan Villopoto or even Jason Lawrence if everyone were to line up together this weekend?
That’s the kind of bench-racing we had in mind when we came up with the idea for the new Racer X Top 25 Power Rankings. For this brand new weekly feature, we invited a diverse panel of industry friends and race watchers to rank the best 25 riders so far in 2007, based on results, lap times, effort and more; it’s like asking where they think the riders might finish if they all lined up together—450s and 250Fs—for an all-inclusive race (and we only included the West Region SX riders as we haven’t seen the East guys yet; they will be added to the ballot after Atlanta).
The Racer X Top 25 Power Rankings work much the way the
USA Today/AP college football Top 25 poll works: The rider voted first gets 25 points; 24 for second; 23 for third… Down to one point for a 25th ranking. Then we added the ballots up for our top 25. (We also listed all of the voters below, in alphabetical order; we will be adding more for next week.)
So who’s #2? Check it out:
POINTS # RIDER TEAM
1. 945 7 James Stewart (33) Monster Energy Kawasaki
2. 872 4 Ricky Carmichael (5) Makita Suzuki
3. 861 22 Chad Reed San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Yamaha
4. 841 51 Ryan Villopoto Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki
5. 790 15 Tim Ferry Monster Energy Kawasaki
6. 650 27 Nicholas Wey MDK Motorsports Honda
7. 647 11 Travis Preston Sobe No Fear/Samsung Mobile Honda
8. 637 14 Kevin Windham Sobe No Fear/Samsung Mobile Honda
9. 622 338 Jason Lawrence Yamaha of Troy Yamaha
10. 556 26 Michael Byrne Rockstar Suzuki
11. 553 12 David Vuillemin MDK Motorsports Honda
12. 513 9 Ivan Tedesco Makita Suzuki
13. 509 24 Josh Grant Sobe No Fear/Samsung Mobile Honda
14. 413 377 Christophe Pourcel Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki
15. 358 13 Heath Voss Privateer Honda
16. 335 58 Joshua Hill Factory Yamaha
17. 280 73 Jake Weimer Sobe No Fear/Samsung Mobile Honda
18. 274 102 Christopher Gosselaar Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki
19. 255 37 Paul Carpenter Cernic's Kawasaki
20. 181 577 Martin Davalos Red Bull KTM
21. 165 40 Jeff Gibson Cernic's Kawasaki
22. 151 100 Josh Hansen Red Bull KTM
23. 138 8 Grant Langston Factory Yamaha
24. 131 630 Matthew Lemoine Lucas Oil/Star Racing Yamaha
25. 107 53 Tyler Evans Rockstar Bloodshot Suzuki
Total number of judges voting this week: 38
JUDGES
(Linda Ardehali, Vince Arimitsu, John Ayers, Chris Bond, Jason Berry, Dr. John Bodnar, Andy Bowyer, Paul Buckley, Dave Castillo, Davey Coombs, David Clabaugh, Tim Cotter, Steve Cox, Simon Cudby, Jeff Emig, Mike Farber, Jason Fleming, Ryan Gauld, Jason Hooper, Frank Hoppen, Steven Hudson, Chris Hultner, David Izer, Eric Johnson, Jim Kimball, Scotty LaLonde, Stephen Legrand, Mario Marini, Nick McCabe, David Pingree, Dave Prater, Pat Schutte, Bryan Stealey, Denny Stephenson, Michael Stusiak, Carl Stone, Jean Turner, Billy Ursic, Scott Wallenberg, Matt Ware, Jason Weigandt, Billy Wood)
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