Young Honda stars Top Atlanta Supercross

February 25, 2008, 2:08pm

Torrance, CA: They say the first win is the hardest, and if that’s true you can expect more of the same from Davi Millsaps and Trey Canard because they both made their first Supercross wins look easy.

Honda Red Bull Racing’s Millsaps and Torco Racing Fuels Honda’s Canard posted commanding wins in front of 67,000 fans at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia on February 23, 2008. Millsaps scored his first Supercross victory in the premier 450 class, and Canard won his debut East Lites Supercross race.

Millsaps, who turned 20 just a week before this race, won the 20-lap main event on his Honda CRF450R ahead of fellow Honda racer Kevin Windham and Honda Red Bull Racing teammate Andrew Short, giving Honda a clean sweep of the podium. Seventeen-year-old phenom Trey Canard, racing in his first-ever professional Supercross event, led wire-to-wire on his CRF250R, taking a runaway victory in the season’s first East Lites race with a huge 7.296-second margin over second place.

Windham, who won the previous weekend’s Supercross race in Houston on his Torco Racing Fuels Honda CRF450R, overcame a poor start to claw his way up to second but could not catch Millsaps.

“I had a lot of friends and family here tonight,” said Millsaps, “so winning in front of them is huge, especially my first win in this class.”

Canard’s Torco Racing Fuels Honda teammate, Josh Grant, was favored to win the Lites event after posting the quickest qualifying time in his heat race, but he was caught up in a first-turn crash in the main. Grant remounted and worked his way up to a seventh-place finish, salvaging valuable championship points. Frenchman Ben Coisy, filling in for the injured Ben Townley on the Honda Red Bull CRF250R, finished 10th in his AMA Supercross Lites debut.

There was no stopping Canard, however. A successful amateur before heading into his first full professional season this year, Canard rode like a cool-headed veteran. “I do not know what to say right now,” said Canard after the race. “I have waited my whole life for this, and to get the win means so much to me. I had a great heat race and was ready for the main.”

AMA Supercross Class
1. Davi Millsaps (Hon)
2. Kevin Windham (Hon)
3. Andrew Short (Hon)
4. Tim Ferry (Kaw)
5. Nathan Ramsey (Yam)
6. Chad Reed (Yam)
7. Charles Summey (Yam)
8. Paul Carpenter (Hon)
9. David Vuillemin (Suz)
10. Jason Thomas (Hon)

AMA East Lites Supercross Class
1. Trey Canard (Hon)
2. Martin Davalos (KTM)
3. Ryan Sipes (KTM)
4. Jake Moss (Yam)
5. Tyler Bowers (Yam)
6. Branden Jesseman (Kaw)
7. Josh Grant (Hon)
8. Nico Izzi (Suz)
9. Kyle Chisholm (Kaw)
10. Ben Coisy (Hon)