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/307350
VOL. 51 ISSUE 18 MAY 6, 2014 P115 72 wins. That one appears to be out of reach for Villopoto. After 2014 Villopoto is now ranked third on the all-time AMA Supercross Champions list. His four titles, place him behind only McGrath's seven and Carmichael's five. Again you could easily see RV at least tying Carmichael, but catching McGrath in that category would be a monumental task. On the once unthinkable subject of anyone catching up to McGrath's record of wins, Stewart snapped out of a dormant period where he scored just three Supercross wins since 2011 and once again showed flashes of the skills that earned him the nickname of "The Fastest Man on the Planet." Stewart scored five wins this year, second in the series to RV and the most since 2011 for Bubba. That spurt moved him past his old rival Carmichael to second on the all-time Supercross wins list and started a little murmuring about the possibility of catching McGrath's magic 72. It's highly unlikely, but if a now 28-year-old Stewart somehow caught fire and had a 12-win season in 2015 for instance, McGrath's record, long considered unbreakable, would unbelievably be in jeopardy of being caught. The odds makers wouldn't give much of a chance of that happening, but Stewart has a history of si- lencing his doubters and the very fact that the Su- percross world is now wondering if someone could catch McGrath's record is quite an achievement. What else did the 2014 SX season teach us? Well for one it appears that Ryan Dungey, once considered a candidate for multiple titles, for what- ever reason does not seem to be able to race for wins on anything that resembles a consistent basis. He scored only one victory this season, his low- est output since 2011. Rarely has a second-ranked rider in the series seemed so distant from winning a championship. Some insiders say that Dungey simply is not willing to live the 24/7 boot camp life- style that it takes to compete with Villopoto. It was once thought his KTM race bike might be the culprit, but teammate Ken Roczen came through to score two wins in his rookie season, so the bike seems plenty capable. Many pundits feel that Dungey has the talent to win another title, but whether or not he can muster the commitment it will take to do so is still a question mark. On the subject of Roczen, he looked strong in his rookie season and was a championship contender before having disastrous races at In- dianapolis (crash) and Detroit (mechanical). So good was Roczen in the first half of the season, Villopoto openly wondered if he'd made the right decision allowing Roczen into his inner circle of off-season training with Aldon Baker. It will be in- teresting to see which of the younger generation of riders rises up to challenge for a championship in the next season or two. Many consider Roc- zen the next true championship contender. Rid- ers like Justin Barcia, Eli Tomac, Jason Anderson and Cole Seely hope to have something to say about that as well. There were five Supercross winners in 2014. Amazingly, that's right about average. That's five straight seasons now (and six out of the last seven years) where five riders stood atop the podium. The record incidentally is eight winners during the 1985 season. It was way back in 1998 when we last had more than five winners. In '98 we had six – John Dowd, Ezra Lusk, McGrath, Sebastien Tortelli , Larry Ward and Kevin Windham. Hard to believe that was 16 years ago. Those days of multiple winners may come around again soon. You need to look no further than the 250 Supercross races this year for evi- dence, where nine different riders won in the two regional championships. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives THE 2014 AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES FROM HISTORY'S PERSPECTIVE