Cycle News

I t's the day after the first Atlanta round of the 2015 Monster Energy Supercross Series and I'm sit- ting in my hotel room, listening to the constant rain and wishing some of it would follow me home to California tomorrow. In the meantime, here are my thoughts on the series thus far. The Ryan Dungey of 2015 is not the same old Ryan Dungey. Something lit a fire under him; whether it was the elimination of Ken Roc- zen from the KTM tent, Villopoto's defection to Europe, or Dungey's own defection to the Aldon Baker training camp, Dungey is riding like he wants to win this championship. It's not easy to pick out any one thing, but to borrow a phrase from "Fro" (aka Jeff Emig); he's riding with a new- found "sense of urgency." Dungey won the Supercross Championship as a rookie back in 2010, the year that Ryan Vil- lopoto broke his leg in Seattle and Stewart was also out most of the season. With their absence, there were some people saying that he had lucked into the title and had not beaten the other guys "straight up," etc. Chad Reed went through the same BS and that's exactly what it is: a load of crap. There is an entire field of riders doing all they can to become champion and you have to be there at the end to win it. Dungey has also gotten a bad rap for not being aggressive enough and it is true that in the past couple of years, he often seemed to balk at mak- ing passes that required a little bump and grind. He had a tendency to get stuck behind a rider, then kind of settle in at their pace while the leaders pulled away. He did it at the season opener and finished fourth, the only time he has been off the box this year. Since then he has been on a tear, with two wins, the red plate and a 25-point lead. Trey Canard has emerged as the biggest threat to Dungey's title hopes, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Trey has consistently shown the most speed on the track, winning twice and coming through the pack after mediocre starts to keep him in the title hunt, albeit a full race behind. With wins at rounds one and three, Ken Roc- zen looked like he was set to become the sport's next dominant rider, until he came up short on a triple jump in Oakland, ringing his bell (and other parts) hard. He finished 15th and hasn't been the same since that night, going 4-2-2 in the subse- quent rounds. Not bad, of course, but not the results anyone expected after his performance during the first three rounds. Saturday night in Atlanta was a disaster for Roczen. He crashed during practice, injuring his big toe when he slammed into an unprotected portion of a con- crete wall, then followed that with a nasty endo in the main. Banged up, but not broken, he sits in third, 31 points behind Dungey. Eli Tomac continues to be his own worst enemy, both on and off the track (make that second-worst, behind Reed, more on that later). A pre-season favorite, Eli crashed his way through round one and scored one point for 20th place. Heading into Atlanta, he had clawed his way up to fourth in points, courtesy of one win and despite multiple crashes. He crashed hard Saturday night, bloody- ing his face and matching his abysmal result in the opening round. Eli blames Reed for him getting the short end of the stick in a San Diego dust-up between the two, and elected to retaliate in Dallas, putting Reed on the ground. This didn't sit well with Reed's camp, who voiced their displeasure to Supercross referee John Gallagher for his failure to penalize Tomac for the incident. All of this came following the now-infamous black-flagging of Reed at Anaheim 2, where he bumped Trey Canard off the track as retaliation for a racing incident that occurred moments ear- BY STEVE BAUER CN III FRIENDLY FIRE SUPERCROSS THUS FAR P126

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