ROUND 1/JANUARY 4, 2014
ANGEL STADIUM OF ANAHEIM/ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA
SUPERCROSS
P48
MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES
Cole Seely (21) and
Anderson (17) had a great
battle for the 250-class lead.
Defending Supercross Champion Ryan Villopoto had the Anaheim
I win pulled out from under him
when a simple front-end washout
put him on the ground. He was enjoying a modest, but comfortable
lead, which he had owned from
the get-go, when he went down on
the ninth lap and dropped to fifth.
He managed to get one of those
positions back when Stewart fell
and finished out the race in fourth
- a far cry from the 16th place he
finished in last year's opener.
"The track was tough to find anywhere to make up a
whole lot of time; we were all kind of the same, doing the
same thing, going the same speed through the whoops
and things like that," he said. "I was clicking off some
decent laps and I kind of felt like I got into a rhythm – the
track almost didn't allow you to get into a rhythm – and
once I did, the front end washed out
really quick."
Despite 11 laps still ahead of him,
Villopoto made little headway after his
crash.
"It was halfway, and I was still trying to push and move forward, but
it wasn't happening like I wanted it
to, so I just tried to maintain what I
was doing," he said. "Once James
[Stewart] started catching those guys,
I thought 'this is going to get interesting,' and it did and I made up a spot
there.
"Overall, I felt pretty good; the track
was a little awkward and we need to
work with a couple of things with my bike, nothing major,"
he added. "Like everyone, we race Anaheim I and figure
out what you need to work on, what I need to work on,
and make it better and see what we can do.
"All I can say is that it's a lot better than it is last year."
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JASON ABBOTT
WASHED AWAY
