A2 Practice Report

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With the practice over, it’s just about what was expected at Angel Stadium in Anaheim. San Manuel Yamaha’s James Stewart was the only rider to drop below one-minute laptime, and the most interesting thing about it was the way that he did it.

In the first practice, Stewart crashed in a tricky rhythm section on the third baseline, where riders were tripling to the top of a tabletop, then bouncing off of the top over another jump, and then doubling into the turn. A lot of riders went down in the tricky section as the track is also a bit wet and rutted.

So, in the second session, Stewart was the first rider to triple completely over the tabletop, instead of just to the top of it, and then triple the last three into the corner. That gave him his 59.769-second laptime.

It wasn’t long until Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Ryan Villopoto duplicated the feat, followed by GEICO Powersports Honda’s Kevin Windham, JGR/Toyota Yamaha’s Josh Grant, Yamaha’s Josh Hill, and then defending champ Chad Reed. The line was much smoother and actually looked easier than the earlier line.

The remarkable thing about Grant’s accomplishment in doing the section that way is that he went down hard just a few laps earlier in the same section when he collided in midair with Honda Red Bull Racing’s Ivan Tedesco. Tedesco went down, too, and then went down over the bars later again at the end of the same section. Tedesco was fine and finished the practice session.

Here are the top times from the 450cc class:

1    00:59.769    James Stewart
2    01:00.021    Chad Reed
3    01:01.116    Ryan D. Villopoto
4    01:01.437    Joshua M. Grant
5    01:01.767    Kevin W. Windham
6    01:01.797    Andrew T. Short
7    01:01.998    David D. Millsaps
8    01:02.320    Joshua R. Hill
9    01:02.338    Timmy M. Ferry
10    01:02.965    Ben Coisy

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The Lites class was all Rockstar/Makita Suzuki’s Ryan Dungey, who actually put down the third-fastest time of the day overall, including 450s, with a 1:00.659 – only Reed and Stewart putting down faster laps.

Rebounding from his disastrous race at Phoenix, Jason Lawrence put down the second-fastest time, just in front of round-one winner Jake Weimer, Justin Brayton, Chris Blose, Dan Reardon, and the rest of the field.

The track itself features some tricky sections, including the aforementioned rhythm section, a two-lane section before what would’ve been two single jumps, but which has now turned into a single jump into a nearly vertical double over into a turn. The good news is that it’s a good floater for whips and whatnot, but the bad news is that it’s one-lined.

We’ll see how the races play out after 7 p.m. PST.

1    01:00.659    Ryan M. Dungey
2    01:01.783    Jason D. Lawrence
3    01:02.002    Jake T. Weimer
4    01:02.663    Justin D. Brayton
5    01:02.839    Chris Blose
6    01:02.906    Dan Reardon
7    01:02.995    Eric J. McCrummen
8    01:03.319    Kyle B. Cunningham
9    01:03.354    Ryan Sipes
10    01:03.483    Ryan Morais