With so much parity in the East Coast Lites class this year the championship could end up being decided by not just one race, but just a single section of one race. The soft track surface in St. Louis wrecked havoc on a tricky section that consisted of a series of fairly rudimentary whoops followed by a short triple jump. As the conditions gradually broke down—hey, that’s motocross!—the section became more and more difficult to get over. By the time the Lites main event came around it had grown fangs and ended up biting two of the series contenders bigtime.
As the boys rode out for the parade lap you could see a noticeable curb developing near the bottom of the face of the triple. It had gotten cupped out from the riders hitting the gas after skimming the last whoop. Any old racer or fan with a keen eye could see that danger loomed in this section.
Makita Suzuki’s Ryan Dungey was the first rider to fall into its clutches. First he went over the berm after getting out of control, then on the very next lap he went down after hitting a Tuff Block that Lange had knocked into the track after being out of control himself.
Nobody will argue that Lange took the hardest hit in his spectacular last lap crash, but it was Dungey that suffered the most as his second mistake in the section ended up costing him nearly an entire race worth of points, and possibly the championship.
The winner? The one with the 2004 World Motocross Championship under his kidney belt. Ben Townley may be a newbie in supercross, but he’s a fast learner, and the man can obviously ride motocross. That came in handy in St. Louis.
