Cycle News

MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES VOL. 51 ISSUE 11 MARCH 18, 2014 P71 Meanwhile, Seely had another great day filling in for the injured Trey Canard on the Team Muscle Milk Honda, despite a run-in with Andrew Short, which left Seely on the ground and back in 15 th at the finish. Seely might not have appreci- ate Shorty's aggressiveness, the BTO Sports KTM rider's forceful riding led him to a season-best fourth overall at the finish. Dean Wilson, once again, was one of the fastest riders in qualifying, and the 250 West Supercross title contender ran third for the early part of the race only to fade at the midway point and finish the race in 12 th , much like he did the week be- fore at Daytona. The 250 rider is still getting the hang of the 450 class in what was just his third try on the big bike. STEADY STEWART Stewart admitted after the race that a lot of times success on the track boils down to get- ting the right setup. In Detroit, he and his crew did just that, coming away with just the right suspension/motor/tire com- bination that allowed him to find traction on the slick and hard-packed track. However, in Stewart's case, it sometimes comes down to just staying on two wheels, which is something he's been unable to do the last three races. In Atlanta, Stewart looked poised to take the victory after dominating practice and win- ning his heat race. But a few turns into the main event, while leading, he washed out the front end in a relatively flat and simple corner and then watched as the entire pack funneled by. The next two weekends, in Briefly... a tough part of the track for the rid- ers, as it fed the riders straight into a rhythm section after a downhill, which had them hitting it at a pretty high speed. Some riders didn't like the "ramp," but Justin Bogle was a fan of it. "That ramp was cool; cool for the history of it, old school like at Pontiac," Bogle said. "But it was also difficult because of the rhythms down at the bottom. It became very technical." At the start of the season, most of the riders were looking forward to mov- ing to the eastern tracks in search of better soil and better conditions, however, in most cases they have found just the opposite, according to Ryan Dungey. "I couldn't believe how slippery it was out there," said Dungey. "It blows my mind how many tracks this year have been like that. It's turning into a throttle control and whoever can ride that kind of stuff the best. I don't remember a year when every track has been that slip- pery, especially like Phoenix, you know it's going to be slippery, but it was just like unbelievably icy." For sure, a track like Detroit is hard to get the bike working well on, but Ryan Dungey and crew seemed to be in good shape from the get-go. "If you can come to a race and your bike feels good right away, then that's a plus," said Dungey. "It's always good to come to a race and your bike is in the ball park right off the bat, and that's kind of the way it was today. It got a little choppy and we ended up slowing down the rebound a little bit on the front and didn't even tough the rear – that's the only change we made all day. And when we got to the main, as rough as it got, I really felt James Stewart won for the third time in Detroit and the 48 th time of his career, matching Ricky Carmichael for second on the all-time win list. continued on next page

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