The second and final timed practice session is over here in Phoenix. In the Lites class, it looked like the kids were set to own it when Ken Roczen jumped to the top of the leader board (again) and Eli Tomac showed his face at the front for the first time this year by putting his number 19 in second.
But Josh Hansen wasn’t having it. After launching over the tuff blocks and off the track on the same triple that sent Roczen for an off-track excursion earlier in the day, and then blasting through the whoops so hard that he nearly went off the track again, L’il Hanny dialed it in and logged the fastest lap of the session with a 49.877, Hansen was the only Lites rider to log a sub-50-second lap time. Roczen came second in at 50.144, while Martin Davalos showed improvement over the first session by logging the third fastest time at 50.260. Kyle Cunningham (50.285) and Broc Tickle (50.324) filled out the top five.
In the supercross class, Josh Grant nailed down the fastest time early on, but James Stewart jumped again to the top of the board, and stayed there for awhile. Trey Canard consistently logged times within two tenths of Stewart, and then finally someone responded to knock Stewart off of the top step: Ryan Villopoto. He logged a 48.639. But Stewart then immediately put together a 48.421. They were the only two riders to turn laps in the 48 second range.
Stewart and Chad Reed were the only riders triple-tripling a section after the finish, but Reed still finished a distant 10th fastest at 50.028. He will need to pick it up if he wants to compete for a podium finish tonight.
(Aaron Hansel also contributed to this practice report).
