Sign of the (Lap) Times: Hangtown

May 22, 2007, 9:25am

MX Lites

While everyone is now talking about Ben Townley and his first AMA National win of his career and how he will give Ryan Villopoto a run for the championship this year, let’s take a look at what tale the lap times tell.

In both Lites motos on Sunday afternoon it was the #1 of Villopoto logging the fastest lap time of the moto. In the first moto, in which RV won, he had a 2:20.801, which was over a full second faster than second-place Townley’s fastest lap. In fact, the only riders that had faster laps out of both classes in the first motos were James Stewart and Ricky Carmichael. That’s yet another impressive statement for the youngster from Poulsbo, Washington.

In the second moto it was much of the same, with RV’s fastest lap being over a second faster than Townley’s, but BT101 was out front and got the moto win and overall. But after seeing RV lay down lap times like that, it has to instill some fear in the eyes of his competition. Because looking back to last season, RV really got the train rolling at round two in Mt. Morris.

Pos.	Moto 1	Moto 2	Rider	Bike
1	02:22.274	02:24.367	Ben Townley	Kawasaki
2	02:20.801	02:23.297	Ryan Villopoto	Kawasaki
3	02:22.853	02:25.879	Ryan Dungey	Suzuki
4	02:22.674	02:27.441	Josh Grant	Honda
5	02:23.992	02:26.545	Brett Metcalfe	Kawasaki
6	02:23.880	02:26.251	Jason Lawrence	Yamaha
7	02:25.082	02:28.472	Tommy Hahn	Honda
8	02:25.345	02:27.597	Broc Tickle	Yamaha
9	02:25.868	02:29.247	Martin Davalos	KTM
10	02:25.380	02:29.351	Jake Weimer	Honda
11	02:27.223	02:30.138	Matt Boni	Kawasaki
12	02:25.344	02:33.901	Matt Goerke	Yamaha
13	02:25.702	02:27.057	Josh Hill	Yamaha
14	02:26.324	02:29.222	Dusty Klatt	Yamaha
15	02:28.121	02:30.801	Steve Boniface	Kawasaki
16	02:26.050	02:33.831	Joaquim Rodrigues	KTM
17	02:27.631	02:30.605	Matt Lemoine	Yamaha
18	02:29.490	02:30.302	Kyle Cunningham	Yamaha
19	02:28.211	02:31.116	Kyle Chisholm	Kawasaki
20	N/A	02:30.436	Daniel Sani	Yamaha

But full credit to Townley: He was riding on the Hangtown track for the first time, and his second moto lap times were consistently in the XXX-range. Afterwards, he credited his trainer Aldon Baker for his conditioning, a statement that would be echoed later by the 450 class winner!

Check out BT101’s second moto times, which were steady
enough to pull away from the rest of the pack:

Lap - Time
2 - 2:25.972
3 - 2:25.214
4 - 2:24.555
5 - 2:24.367
6 - 2:24.893
7 - 2:24.633
8 - 2:24.464
9 - 2:26.146
10 - 2:26.591
11 - 2:26.417
12 - 2:27.461
13 - 2:29.447
14 - 2:32.025
15 - 2:41.294

Biggest Surprise: For all the talk of how fast Jason Lawrence was going through the pack on his way to the front both motos, it’s kind of surprising that he only had the fifth-fastest lap time in the first moto, and the fourth-fastest in the second moto. However, the Hangtown track was at its fastest early in each moto, which is precisely when the Yamaha of Troy rider was still in traffic.

Broc Tickle was impressive at Hangtown

It was also a nice surprise seeing North Carolina’s Broc Tickle mixing it up and showing he belongs in the top 10 of the super-fast Lites class. It was his first national competing in the MX Lites class, and he was impressive on the Lucas Oil/Star Racing Yamaha.

MX Class

Pos.	Moto 1	Moto 2	Rider	Bike
1	02:17.939	02:21.094	Ricky Carmichael	Suzuki
2	02:18.131	02:22.236	James Stewart	Kawasaki
3	02:21.901	02:25.636	Tim Ferry	Kawasaki
4	02:22.920	02:25.517	Davi Millsaps	Honda
5	02:23.040	02:26.599	Grant Langston	Yamaha
6	02:22.737	02:28.988	Kevin Windham	Honda
7	02:25.992	02:26.871	Andrew Short	Honda
8	02:22.544	02:28.732	Mike Alessi	KTM
9	02:26.928	02:29.464	Michael Byrne	Suzuki
10	02:27.998	02:28.051	David Vuillemin	Honda
11	02:26.210	02:30.172	Jeff Alessi	KTM
12	02:28.775	02:31.620	Ryan Clark	Honda
13	02:28.989	02:30.896	Antonio Balbi	Honda
14	02:28.207	02:31.986	Kyle Lewis	Honda
15	02:27.497	N/A	Akira Narita	Honda
16	02:29.639	02:32.789	Jason Thomas	Honda
17	02:27.852	02:35.799	Cole Siebler	Honda
18	02:29.355	02:32.061	Gavin Gracyk	Honda
19	02:29.228	02:33.458	Adam Chatfield	Honda
20	02:27.221	02:35.297	Kyle Partridge	Honda

What we witnessed this past weekend at Hangtown in the Motocross class does come as a bit of a surprise to many, especially to those of us who have experience riding and racing dirt bikes. Not competing for a couple months should slow someone down, but not RC. In both motos at Hangtown he was able to record the fastest lap time, even though he was fighting with his bike setup all day. With the first race out of the way, RC is returning a track that he’s raced on his entire life—High Point Raceway. It looks like we may be in for another battle of epic proportions, similar to last year.

It’s always fun to take a look at the lap times from the second moto of the MX class, where the track is at its worst, being chewed up and spit out by factory race bikes all day long.

Carmichael’s fastest second-moto lap time was a 2:21.094. James’ fastest time was a little over a second slower, and the third fastest time came from Honda’s Davi Millsaps, but it was over four seconds slower! One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi…..

Team Solitaire's Ryan Clark

It’s even more amazing to look at the difference between RC’s lap time and the 13th fastest time of Team Solitaire’s Ryan Clark, a full-on privateer. Clark’s fastest lap time was a 2:31.620—a full 10 seconds off of RC’s pace! We can go farther back than that. The 36th fastest lap of that moto came by Alaska’s Jerry Lymburner, who ran a 2:41.838—20 seconds off of RC.