Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/103458
"I've never really won anything big like this before, so it's pretty cooL" Bani also had an impressive week. But unlike Canard, Bani had "been there, done that" before. The Floridian claimed seven titles in the 2003 Winter Nationals and also won the Pro Circuit Platinum Pipe Award, the Scott Golden Goggles Award and the Iron Man Award that year. Last year, he won the Golden Goggles Award again. But, what made his performance this year standout was the fact that he had missed most of the year, and had only been back riding for three weeks, after recovering from a major injury. "'t's been a rough year," Boni said. "I had wrist surgery in January for a real bad break. I healed enough to start training for Loretta's, but then about two weeks before Loretta's, , tore my ACL. So I had surgery on that at the end of August, and I just started riding again about three weeks ago." The 18-year-old collected most of his points during the Supercross races, which he admits he prefers over motocross, but did well enough on the hard-packed Gatorback MX course to capture a MX title and the Dunlop Silver Tire Award. Nelson overcame a DNF in the Motocross competition to edge KTM's Cooper Webb for the Fox Bronze Boot Award, despite the fact that the two riders competed in different age groups Nelson in the 10-1 , classes and Webb in the 7-9 classes. "I've wanted to win this award since I was on 50s," Nelson said. "I won all my 60 motos in the Supercross and did pretty good on the 80s, but I crashed out of the 80 Modified class and got pretty banged up." Nelson claimed three overall titles en route to the Bronze Boot Award, while Webb topped the 65cc Modified (7-9) MX title and was also tops in the 6Scc (7-9) Olympiad scoring. Izzi was the top point-getter in the 125cc (12-15) category, despite crashing out of a couple of races, and finished the week with two Supercross titles and two Motocross titles. "It's kind of been a roller-coaster ride this week," Izzi admitted. "I know I'm the fastest and I've trained really hard, but I just crashed a couple of times. I just moved up to the big bikes and there is a lot of pressure, but I am just looking at this as a fun race. There are a ton of fast guys on the big bikes now." The Florida event was Izzi's debut on a big bike, and he was blazing fast when he stayed on two wheels. '" had a couple of mistakes, but I think everything went pretty good," l22i added. "My new Pro Circuit bike is so fast that I couldn't keep the front end down. Maybe I need to go home and gain a couple of pounds." Bentonville, Arkansas' Terren O'Dell won the Super Mini (12-15) Supercross and Motocross overall titles and also won the Olympiad Award for the 85cc (12-13) division. The Honda rider's stiffest competition was Tyler Sjoberg and Eli Tomac. Sjoberg ended the week with two titles, while Tomac claimed one. During the Supercross competition, Ohio's Tyler Bowers was one of the fastest in the 125cc and 250cc B classes.