Reed Commands Toronto Supercross

Yamaha YZ450F pilot Chad Reed returned to his winning ways by dominating the 12th round of the 2008 AMA Supercross series in Toronto, Ontario Canada on Saturday night, March 29. Reed’s seventh win of the season is the most for the L&M Racing pilot since his 2004 Supercross championship year. He now leads the title chase by 20 points over Kevin Windham, who finished second in the 20-lap main event. Meanwhile Josh Hill, who showed outstanding speed earlier in the evening, crashed twice on the slippery track and ultimately finished fifth, climbing to fifth in points in the process.

Reed and Hill were second and sixth quickest, respectively, in practice. But then things got wild as Reed clipped the back of Windham’s bike and went sprawling in his heat race before recovering to transfer to the main event. Reed took complete control from there on though, grabbing the holeshot and leading every lap of the final. Meanwhile, fresh from his victory at Minneapolis two weeks ago, Hill initially looked set to challenge Reed but washed out the front end on the second lap and slid from second to fifth. He recovered, dropped back to 12th after falling again a lap later, and then worked his way back up field once more. He later reckoned that a concrete surface under the shallow dirt led to the slips.

“At the start of the main event it seemed like it was going to be a 1-2 finish for Yamaha,” said Supercross team manager Jim Perry. “After making a couple of mistakes Josh recovered and put in a strong ride.” As for Reed, Saturday night’s dominating performance gives him back-to-back Toronto wins – although this one was earned on a particularly rutted and difficult track. “On ruts like that you have to be smart,” he commented later. “I didn’t want to go too hard and step off like I’ve been doing the last couple of races. I’m so happy to be back up here.”

 

2008 AMA Supercross Points          3/29/08

Pos.    Rider                                              Points     

1          Chad Reed – Yamaha                   262

2          Kevin Windham                                 242

3          Andrew Short                                     190

4          Davi Millsaps                                     184

5          Josh Hill – Yamaha                        151

6          Tim Ferry                                            151

7          Nathan Ramsey – Yamaha          137

8          David Vuillemin                                 123

9          Nick Wey                                            110

10        Paul Carpenter                                  107