A lot has been made about how crazy the St. Louis Supercross normally is. Sometimes, if something is consistently odd, it becomes odd if it isn’t odd. That’s the case with the St. Louis Supercross, and this year was normal – for St. Louis.
The battle of the Ryans seemed destined to go down to the wire in Las Vegas, but that was until St. Louis had its say. Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Ryan Villopoto was leading the main event when he went down – hard – over a tricky obstacle that his teammate Chad Reed said – on national TV – was going to lead to some people getting “carted off” in the main event. And he was right. Both Villopoto and Valli Motorsports Yamaha’s Ivan Tedesco ended up victims of the triple that led out of the rhythm section after the start. For Villopoto, the end result is a badly broken right tibia and fibula, and even worse than that, the end of his supercross championship challenge – and perhaps the end of his AMA National title hopes as well, for the second year in a row, although that has yet to be seen. For Tedesco, the end result is a bunch of broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and a collapsed lung that is going to force him to drive home to California rather than fly, as pulmonary injuries don’t usually get along with large changes in altitude. Also, Tedesco may end up losing the momentum that he had just started picking up after a podium finish a week before in Houston; he was running fourth in the St. Louis main when he hit the deck.
And finally, don’t think that Reed is going to quit his racing career to create a psychic hotline. He’s not psychic. What Chad Reed is is very smart, and he knows supercross as well as anyone alive, from every angle. Knowing this, when Chad Reed speaks up, you’d be smart to listen, and anyone who might not have heeded his warning last Saturday night just learned that lesson the hard way.
The battle of the Ryans seemed destined to go down to the wire in Las Vegas, but that was until St. Louis had its say. Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Ryan Villopoto was leading the main event when he went down – hard – over a tricky obstacle that his teammate Chad Reed said – on national TV – was going to lead to some people getting “carted off” in the main event. And he was right. Both Villopoto and Valli Motorsports Yamaha’s Ivan Tedesco ended up victims of the triple that led out of the rhythm section after the start. For Villopoto, the end result is a badly broken right tibia and fibula, and even worse than that, the end of his supercross championship challenge – and perhaps the end of his AMA National title hopes as well, for the second year in a row, although that has yet to be seen. For Tedesco, the end result is a bunch of broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and a collapsed lung that is going to force him to drive home to California rather than fly, as pulmonary injuries don’t usually get along with large changes in altitude. Also, Tedesco may end up losing the momentum that he had just started picking up after a podium finish a week before in Houston; he was running fourth in the St. Louis main when he hit the deck.
And finally, don’t think that Reed is going to quit his racing career to create a psychic hotline. He’s not psychic. What Chad Reed is is very smart, and he knows supercross as well as anyone alive, from every angle. Knowing this, when Chad Reed speaks up, you’d be smart to listen, and anyone who might not have heeded his warning last Saturday night just learned that lesson the hard way.
