News
Minneapolis.SX.Report
After being off of the AMA Supercross schedule for four long years
the Minneapolis SX was back for 2008! Many North Dakotans made the
trek to watch some great supercross action and they weren’t
disappointed.
Lites
In the Lites class Josh Grant and Ryan Villipoto both had great
times in practice and brought their A game to the night main event.
With both of them out to prove that they still belong at the top of
the class they put down an amazing pace and said good bye to the
field. With Grant leading the way, they battled for the entire moto
only to have things come to a culmination in the last three turns.
After Villipoto attempted to put a block pass on Grant in a bowl
turn the two of them banged bars all the way down the straight and
into the last two turns. Villipoto snuck to the inside and doubled
out of a tricky step off and nearly landed on Grant as he missed a
gear and was unable to clear the last section of the track. Grant
tossed it away to avoid being rubber stamped by Villipoto but was
able to get it up in time and finish second with Martin Davalos
coming in third. Both Villipoto and Grant celebrated after the moto,
happy to finally put together their best races of the season.
SX
With thousands of screaming fans on their feet, hometown hero Ryan
Dungey grabbed the Progressive Direct holeshot and led the premier
class for several laps before being moved out of the way by faster
moving Yamaha rider Josh Hill. Chad Reed meanwhile suffered a
horrendous start and was making his way through the field utilizing
a different line through the same step-on step-off section that
nearly claimed Villipoto and Grant in the Lites class. Reed made it
all the way to second when disaster struck.
Reed was bucked to the front of his bike in one of the whoop
sections and somehow managed to keep from endoing. He did however,
lose his front tire at speed in the nest turn and was down for some
time. Reed remounted to finish seventh, but no one could catch Hill
on this night and the young Yamaha rider won his first AMA
Supercross race followed by Makita Suzuki’s Ryan Dungey and Torco
Racing Honda’s Kevin Windham.
ND SX
After several tries, North Dakota’s Tanner Reidman succeeded in
qualifying for the SX Lites class night show in Minneapolis. Tanner
finished 13th in the first qualifying heat and suffered a
bad start in the LCQ. Although he didn’t make the main event in his
first night show appearance Tanner was happy with his performance
and said, “It’s good, we’ve gotta go one step at a time.”
