ROUND 2/JANUARY 11, 2014
CHASE FIELD/PHOENIX, ARIZONA
SUPERCROSS
P46
MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES
Justin Barcia
(51) takes Chad
Reed (22)
high in a turn.
Barcia ended up
crashing, and
Reed couldn't
do much with a
midpack start.
BACK ON TOP
Last week at Anaheim I, defending champ Ryan Villopoto,
once again, didn't have the
best start to the season, but
the Monster Energy Kawasaki
Team rider turned that around
on a slick and difficult-to-passon course in Phoenix. After getting off to a poor start, completing lap one in ninth, Villopoto
passed all of his championship
rivals, including James Stewart,
Ryan Dungey and Justin Barica
before passing Justin Brayton on the 14th lap.
After the race, Villopoto said that he had been sick all
week, including the weekend before of A1, and he was
still coughing up phlegm after the race in Phoenix.
"I got sick at A1, nothing major, just didn't feel good,"
said Villopoto. "But I was feeling better tonight. Last
week was more about the bike. We struggled with it. This
week we were able to work on the shock and get it a lot
better. It definitely helped out here. This track is always
slippery and mistakes are so easily made."
The starts at Phoenix, as usual, were very critical, and
Villopoto didn't get the best jump off the gate in either his
heat race or the main.
"When you go back there and look at the pad, it's a
lot of straight tire marks
behind the gate, so it
makes it tough to pick a
good gate and not get
wheel spin. In my heat, I
felt like I had a good jump
and I just spun too much.
In the main, I think I was
a little too soft. You only
have two chances to get it
right and I didn't get it right
either time.
"Once I got going, I was
able to run clean laps and
make my passes stick," said Villopoto.
"When you made a pass, you needed to make it stick
or you would get into these battles, like we saw the first
five laps, which were pretty crazy," Villopoto added.
"People were just stickin' it in, which makes it good for
the fans but for a racer it's like, 'okay, let's just settle
down and start racing.' You know, it sucks to race that
way."
At the end of the night, the only person on the track
with the speed to run with Villopoto ended up being
Brayton.
"Brayton was fast tonight and probably his strongest
part of the track was in the whoops," said Villopoto.
"With about three laps to go I spun before the triple and
he really caught me there."
