Heat races are in the books here in Dallas and the only thing we know is that we’re not sure what’s going to happen tonight in the mains. The racing is going to be close tonight.
Lites Heat 1: We nearly had another Blake Wharton/Ryan Sipes run in. Wharton grabbed the start but Sipes snuck up on him in the second turn. Wharton went down and Sipes grabbed the lead and took off, barely missing Wharton’s downed bike. Malcolm Stewart went down right off the start, and then fell again, but still managed to come all the way back to make the main. Wharton recovered from his crash to sneak into the main as well.
Lites Heat 2: This one was stacked with Baggett, Barcia and Wilson. But Barcia and Wilson really only saw each other, as they ran it in on each other a bunch of times early while battling for second. After a few hard block passes, Barcia made a slick move around the outside of the sand to pass Wilson clean and get second. But he wasn’t going to catch Baggett.
SX Heat 1: Another stacked one, with Villopoto, Reed and Dungey. Villopoto got the start, Reed passed Dungey for second and started closing on RV. Reed was flying—he made a big mistake, charged forward again, made another big mistake, then charged again and finally crashed back to fourth. Not a typical ride from Reed! Villopoto rode solid the whole time to get the win, while Dungey, who had a fall of his own, took second after riding past the downed Reed.
SX Heat 2: Trey Canard knifed underneath Ivan Tedesco off the start here and tried to get away, but that’s not happening when James Stewart is out there. He picked off Tedesco and got to Canard, then made the pass—but Canard put up a good fight and held him back for a bit. Stewart looked super fast through the very difficult whoops, but he was definitely on the edge at times. But he held on over Canard and Tedesco.
Reed actually logged the fastest lap of the heat races with 49.449. Villopotp had a 49.640 and Stewart 49.844.
Lites LCQ: Gannon Audette got tangled in Wharton’s crash in the heat race. He started second here and took the lead when Les Smith crashed. Darryn Durham, another crash victim in the heat, took second for the final transfer spot.
SX LCQ: Kevin Windham went down hard in his heat and had to race this one. He made short work of it, handily pulling away from Weston Peick, who took the final transfer spot.
