Bench Racing Ammo: Career-Best Finishes

It’s only three days after the conclusion of the 2007 Amp’d Mobile AMA Supercross season, and we’re already reminiscing. Not only was it a great season for Kawasaki in general, but it was a great season for a lot of individual riders, as we saw plenty of career-best finishes throughout the series. 
 

BT101 tallied three SX Lites wins photo: Steve Bruhn

Let’s begin in the Lites class. In Phoenix back in January, Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Christophe Pourcel got his career best finish—a win—in only his second AMA Supercross Lites main event. Then East Coast counterpart Ben Townley, another SX immigrant from the Grand Prix circuits, matched him with a win in his second-ever AMA SX race, then outdid him with a total of three total wins, as well as the championship.  

Another East Coaster got his career-best finishes—wins—this season. In fact, he got four of them, and we all know that rider is Makita Suzuki’s Ryan Dungey, who has been very, very impressive thus far. He joins Damon Bradshaw as a rider who won his first-ever AMA Supercross race.

Dungey impressed us all photo: Steve Bruhn

Third-place overall in the east was Canadian Darcy Lange, who got his career best second-place finish in the opening round in Atlanta. Unfortunately, the multi-time AX champion’s results suffered toward the end of the series, but chances are good that we’ll see the #105 on a Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki next season.

Boost Mobile/Yamaha of Troy’s Ryan Morais narrowly missed the championship, but looking on the bright side, he got his career-best finish at round two in St. Louis. Aside from that, he remained healthy the whole series, which is a first. His teammate, Matt Goerke, started the series with two consecutive career-best finishes—a third place in both Atlanta and St. Louis. PPG/Motoworldracing.com Yamaha’s Justin Brayton finished a career best fifth-place in Indianapolis, and most recently, SoBe No Fear/Samsung Mobile Honda’s Jake Weimer finished a career-best second in one of the most important Lites class races of year in Vegas.

Jake Weimer saved his best for last photo: Simon Cudby

In the AMA Supercross class, we saw much of the same for career-best finishes, including Cernic’s Kawasaki’s Paul Carpenter, who got off to a rocky start, but scored two seventh-place finishes and ended the AMA series in 10th overall. Davi Millsaps’ second-place finish in Seattle was also a career-best for the young Honda factory rider. And Tim Ferry, the Kawasaki factory veteran and one of the best stories of the season, was a career-best third in the final AMA and FIM rankings.

Beyond that, I’m sure there are a ton more career-best finishes, like Tamer Kawasaki’s Jacob Marsack, who was making AMA SX main events on a regular basis, but there’s no way we can cover them all. Now it’s time to look forward to some career-best finishes in the AMA Toyota Motocross Nationals! Here’s betting both Dungey and Townley make that happen soon.