Sign of the (Lap) Times: Las Vegas

You got to love the Dave Coombs Sr. East/West Supercross Lites Shootout. Each and every year there’s plenty of debate over which coast is faster, and this is the one race we can finally lay the question to rest, and this year the Easterners got the bragging rights after Christophe Pourcel took the win on his Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki rider, ending a three-year streak for the West Coast riders.

But what do the lap times from Las Vegas tell us? We took the fastest main-event lap time for each rider and posted it in the chart below, and you’ll see that the West Region won this battle, as both Ryan Dungey and Trey Canard were the top two on the timing and scoring monitors. The west also had the majority of riders in the top ten, with six. Check out the rest of the field below:

Finish	Best Lap	Rider	Bike
2	1:05.150	Ryan Dungey (W)	Suzuki
3	1:05.480	Trey Canard (W)	Honda
1	1:05.612	Christophe Pourcel (E)	Kawasaki
5	1:06.205	Austin Stroupe (E)	Kawasaki
4	1:06.329	Jake Weimer (W)	Kawasaki
7	1:07.192	Justin Brayton (W)	KTM
6	1:07.248	Ryan Morais (W)	Kawasaki
8	1:07.394	Jake Moss (W)	Honda
19	1:07.431	Matt Lemoine (E)	Yamaha
11	1:07.787	Blake Wharton (E)	Honda
10	1:08.286	Broc Tickle (E)	Yamaha
9	1:08.356	Wil Hahn (E)	KTM
12	1:08.919	Daniel Blair (E)	Honda
14	1:08.986	P.J. Larsen (W)	Kawasaki
13	1:09.048	Chris Blose (W)	Honda
15	1:09.738	Jimmy Albertson (W)	Honda
16	1:10.251	Ben Evans (W)	Honda
17	1:10.448	Sean Borkenhagen (W)	Honda
18	1:12.168	Vince Friese (E)	Honda

Christophe Pourcel (1E) leads Ryan Dungey (1W)
photo: Simon Cudby

AMA Supercross

The fastest rider of the night in Las Vegas was Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Ryan Villopoto, who took his second win of the 2009 season. He was followed by Rockstar/Makita Suzuki’s Chad Reed and San Manuel Yamaha’s James Stewart, who obviously backed it down a notch in order to protect his six-point lead and the championship. There really was no big surprises throughout the field, but here’s a shout-out to JGRMX/Toyota Yamaha’s Nathan Ramsey, who had the tenth fastest lap time of the main event on his was to a ninth-place finish. He was only a half-second off the fastest lap of his teammate, Josh Grant, and even passed Honda Red Bull Racing’s Davi Millsaps in the main event. It was a great way to end a part-time season for Nate-Dawg, and we hope to see you back in 2010.

Finish	Best Lap	Rider	Bike
1	1:04.284	Ryan Villopoto	Kawasaki
2	1:04.715	Chad Reed	Suzuki
3	1:04.854	James Stewart	Yamaha
4	1:05.499	Kevin Windham	Honda
5	1:06.589	Ivan Tedesco	Honda
6	1:06.977	Mike Alessi	Suzuki
8	1:07.308	Andrew Short	Honda
10	1:07.341	Davi Millsaps	Honda
7	1:07.404	Josh Grant	Yamaha
9	1:07.955	Nathan Ramsey	Yamaha
18	1:08.257	Tommy Hahn	Kawasaki
12	1:09.190	Nick Wey	Yamaha
14	1:09.479	Matt Boni	Honda
19	1:09.724	Tyler Bowers	Honda
16	1:09.769	Bobby Kiniry	Kawasaki
15	1:10.071	Jesse Casillas	KTM
11	1:10.076	Jason Thomas	Honda
13	1:10.240	Paul Carpenter	Kawasaki
20	1:10.244	Heath Voss	Honda
17	1:10.437	Kyle Partridge	Honda

Ryan Villopoto
photo: Simon Cudby