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SUPERCROSS MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES, AN FIM ROUND 3/JANUARY 17, 2015 ANGELS STADIUM OF ANAHEIM/ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA P54 MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES, AN FIM WORLD CHAMPION- SHIP >>BLACK FLAG: A LOSS FOR WORDS It only took moments after Chad Reed "elbowed" Trey Canard into the Tuff Blocks for FIM Race Director John Gallagher to throw the black flag on the TwoTwo Motorsports Team rider on the seventh lap of the 450 main event. "Not ever will we accept a rider taking matters into his own hands," Gallagher later said. And AMA's Kevin Crowther agreed. The resulting DQ cost Reed a bag full of points and probably any chance he had of finishing in the top five of the series. Reed doesn't deny giving Canard a retaliation tap after the Honda rider apparently inadver- tently landed on him while trying to make a pass, but he felt a black flag and subsequent DQ did not fit the crime. "I was just confused that I got black flagged from something I didn't think was that bad," Reed said. It all started when Canard tried to make the ill-fated pass. "I followed Chad the lap before and he went outside and I figured he was going to go outside again," Canard said. "I carried too much momentum and my air brakes didn't work. I landed right on the back of him and went down really hard. I got back up and was adjusting my goggles—I hit my head on the ground pretty good so my goggles were all sweat filled and was pulling a tear- off—[and] out of nowhere I got hit and crashed again. "It was a racing incident," Canard said. Canard went on to finish 11th and then had a few words with Reed. "I just went to him after the race and said, 'why would you do that?' He said that I was an idiot for jump- ing on him. 'Dude, I didn't mean to do that.' He was still ranting and rav- ing, so I just told him that he was a crybaby—the biggest crybaby in the sport and went away." Reed said, "I was on the inside and obviously the next minute I'm cartwheeling down the track. Trey jumped right on the back of me, so, yeah, at that point, I'm pretty mad and confused at what just went down. And then we both picked it up and got going, I throw him an elbow and then I get going. I obviously didn't look back to see that if he went down or anything like that. "Immediately I see the black flag and I was just kind of at a loss for words," Reed said. For sure I'm not denying I threw him an elbow, just a 'what the f--- kind of thing.' That's really about it. "I didn't know what to do," Reed said. "I pulled in and Gallagher wouldn't even come over to me, which I was kind of bummed on. I wasn't that mad; I'm more confused than mad. "After watching it on TV, there is nothing to it. It wasn't like I t-boned him or anything like that. "The first thing that Trey said to me was, 'what were you think- ing?' He caught me a little off guard on even that, I'm like, 'what was I thinking? You jumped on me!' I just said, 'what were you thinking?' And he continued with, 'ah, you're just a crybaby,' I didn't even have a comeback for that. That was too funny. My question is, if I wait a turn or two and throw him an elbow, or t- bone him, or get into like everybody else did [regarding another separate incidents on the night], is that okay? But because it happened right in front of the guy; I think he made an emotional decision." The main complaint Reed had with the black flag was what he and his team thought was a rush to judg- ment. "The rush to judgment that Reed is feeling is not true," Gallagher said. "First off, I get to see it right in front of me, I was literally standing right there when I saw it. And right after it happened, I get an instant replay on the big screen…instantly after it happened, they put it up on the big screen, so it wasn't a rush to judgment. More importantly, when a rider choses to do that, to take mat- ters into his own hands, how would I know when it's going to stop? Is it going to stop on that one incident? The next time he sees him [is] he going to hit him again or? There's no ruler [or formula] that says he's going to do only this much, and that's why he got a black flag. "Trey made huge mistake; he over-jumped the jump, and he did it on the inside. He had nowhere to go but to go into the guy he was chasing." "He [Gallagher] has too much power," said Dave Osterman, Reed's team manager. "You can't have that much power…and just yank a guy out of the race. Everything could have been smoothed over, or dis- cussed, or fined, or take points away or something. I'm not just taking my boss's side; get everybody around and scrutinize what there is to scruti- nize. But just relying on one guy from his angle? They just should have waited with cool heads to decide. Disappointing." Kit Palmer

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