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/128313
know, Kevin kind of checked out. Chad passed me, and it took us a wh ile to pass those guys, so w e lost a lot of time." Afte r Reed got aro und his tea mmate , he w e nt to work on Short and Byrn e . Windham, meanwhile , was continuing to str e tch his legs w it h a clear track in front of him. 'T he track this wee ke nd was tough to pass on ," Reed said. " I tried to just make a clean pass and make it stick, and I think I got Byrne just befo re the finish in the triple-triple [a portion of the rhythm section that only he and laRocco were doing consistently in the main) ." Wh ile Reed did his best to track Windham down, Vuillemin stayed stuck behind the game Byrne until the seventh lap . By the time he got a ro und the Kawasaki rider, Reed was long gone. Vuillemin rode alone for th e re mainde r of the race for th ird. " I don 't think I was very aggressive tonight, and I just th ink I just rod e to get third place ," Vuillemin said. "It seems like I need to get going a litt le bit faste r right off the start... I'm fighting with myself right now - I'm not fight ing with anyth ing else ." Fro m the point that Reed moved into second, he actually continued to lose tim e on Wind ham at about a half-second pe r lap until about the halfway point. On the I Ith lap, Windham 's advan tage had grown to 9.8 seconds. Wind ham had the d isadvan tage of hitting the lappe rs first , and at one point he act ually caught the duel ing Subway Honda pair of Jason Thomas and Joe Oehlhof. On that lap alone he lost about 2 1{2 seconds to Reed . "I got to a point w he re they were dicing, and when you get to lappe rs that are having a race, they're not quick to let you by," Windham said. " Both of ou r whoop se ct ions today had the one fast line, and I seemed to get to the m at the whoop se ctions and didn't just want to muscle my way by. At that time, the opportunity was n't t he re . I would've been putting myself at risk w hen I could just chill out until Briefly.•. Michael Byrnegrabbed his second $1500 Butterlinger Holeshot Award of the season in the 250cc main, whileholeshot king Kelly Smithgot $1000 for his I25cc holeshot. Daryl Hurleygot the $250 Asterisk Medic Card for finishing fifth in the I25cc LCQ after horrible luck allnightlong, and Isaiah Johnson was awarded the $750 Racer X Gas Card for finishing third in the 250cc LCQ. [ames Povolny rode both classes in Minneapolis for the firsttime this year. "I'm going to ride the 250F at the outdoor nationals, so I just thought it'd be good to ride it in supercross," Po vo lny said. "I know I'm rid ing really good, and I can do good in the class. I just bought the bike Thursday night, so we have a ways to go to get it dialed in." He didn 't make the 125ccmain, but he finished 19th in the 250cc main. Littleton. Colorado's Tanner Wineland won the KTMJunior Supercross Chal· le nge over Mi nnesota's own Tayfor Witt and Lo uisiana's Cameron Lejeune. Ryan Clark rode both classes again, and again he made both main events. "I think last week wasn't a real good judgeof my ability to ride both classesbecause I was a little bit under the weather," TeamSolitaire Clark 's said. " I'm not going to lie. It was a pain in the ass. I'm ready to go train on Monday." He finished ninth in the l25cc main and 12th in the 250cc main. Gran t Langst on was stoked to be among the riders to get Tissot watches during qualifying action inside the Metrodome. "I'm actually a watch collector, so I have a fetish with watches , so it's awesome to have another one now, " he said enthusiastically from the podium. Langston was bu mmed about his heat-race crash. as he was sore to beginwith. "I was in • tum, and I didn't hear anythingor nothing, and Igot hit from behind," he said. "My left side was already allsore [from hiscrash in Houston], and now it's my right side as well. That was probably the worst performance I thin k I've ever had . Fortunately nothing's seriously wrong, but I mink it showed that I'm not I00 percent . I just didn't feel good out there at all." Yamaha o f Troy 's Mike Brown was missing fro m the lineup this weekend, but he isn't injured. He's taking time off right now to trai n at Ricky Carmichael'shouse (where he's living now) in the hopes that he can come back to do well at Daytona. www.cyclenews .com CYCLE N EWS • MARCH 3, 200.4 17