Paris-Bercy Supercross Night 2

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Night two at the Bercy Supercross was a spectacular one as the building was sold out and the French partisan crowd had a lot to cheer for. Riders such as Marvin Musquin (the MX2 World Champion), Gregory Aranda and Fabien Izoird have been riding spectacularly and showing some of the Americans the fast way around an arenacross track.

The biggest surprise of the night was L&M’s James Stewart not sweeping all three events. The duel race was his, the main event was his, but a mistake in the tunnel ruined his super-pole time. A third-place finish was the best that James could do in this event. Other than that, Stewie was perfect as he won each of the three elimination races and the main event convincingly. We saw another display of his jaw-dropping ability when he put together a quad coming out of a turn after the starting gate that was huge and very fast. James did this once in practice and then a few times in the duel races before backing it down and putting it into his back pocket, to be pulled out only if necessary.
Besides the super-pole, there was one other mistake on the night and it came when Stewart jumped off the track and landed on some of the inflatable signs onto the flat ground. Incredibly he saved it but it might have convinced the L&M Yamaha rider to play it safe and just do enough to win each of his races.

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And just like 2008, the other rider that impressed French and Americans was Justin Brayton. The brand new JGR Yamaha rider was clearly the second fastest rider on the night and seems to thrive in the tunnels and whoops. Brayton took advantage of Stewie’s mistake to win super-pole, and when he drew the ninth gate pick for the final (the promoters switched up the format instead of going off practice times, the riders drew spoons) it didn’t look good for Brayton to maintain his second spot. After getting an unsurprising mediocre start, Justin got on it and started cutting through the pack. He was the second fastest guy in the whoops and made up a bunch of time on Aranda and Izoird. Soon he was by a tiring Aranda and into second. It was truly a great ride.

The Word Champion Musquin was easy to spot on the track; you could just look where the fans were all standing and screaming. Musquin, a seemingly quiet, shy guy, was very aggressive on his 250F out there and put his KTM into the fourth spot coming from the back as well. One of his “victims” was Matt Boni, and the collision left Matt with some sort of fabric from the track's signage coming from the back of his wheel. Izoird was fifth and Nick Wey was sixth.

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So going into the last day of racing it seems that the French team is ahead of the Americans as the above mentioned trio has been surprisingly fast and, after the two Americans on Yamahas, seem to have the rest of the guys covered. Here are the night’s results combining all three disciplines:

Super-pole, Duel Races,Main Event

1. James Stewart (3-1-1)
2. Justin Brayton (1-3-2)
3. Marvin Musquin (4-2-4)
4. Gregory Aranda (2-8-3)
5. Fabien Izoird (5-5-5)
6. Nick Wey (9-6-6)
7. Matt Boni (8-4-12)
8. Josh Hill (6-10-8)
9. Davide Espoti (10-7-7)
10. Ben Coisy (7-9-15)