Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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VOL. 52 ISSUE 19 MAY 12, 2015 P105 ent winners since the 1998 season. In '98 we also had six—John Dowd, Ezra Lusk, McGrath, Sebas- tien Tortelli, Larry Ward and Kevin Windham. It's hard to believe that was 17 years ago. It was made even more significant in that four of the winners this year—Roczen, Eli Tomac, Trey Canard and of course Dungey—all won more than one Super- cross. Chad Reed and Cole Seely each scored a single win in 2015. And while there were a lot of winners in 2015 historically speaking, it was pretty much a domi- nant performance by Ryan Dungey. He clinched the title very early, at Houston with a full three rounds remaining. That matches the second earli- est clinching of the title, the record being Villopo- to's awesome 2012 season where he clinched the title in March, with four races remaining! Some will point to Ken Roczen's early injury this year and his ultimate exit from the series, but you almost always have one or more of the series contenders go out to injury during the course of the grueling five months of almost nonstop stadium racing and it was Dungey who endured. Think about this—Dungey's eight wins in 2015 was more than Ryan Villopoto had in 2014. Dung- ey now has 22-career 450 Supercross wins. That was noteworthy because it moved him into the top 10 on the all-time Supercross wins list. He's now ranked eighth. Oh and by the way, how about the names Jean-Michel Bayle, Jeff Stanton, Mark Bar- nett, Kevin Windham, Damon Bradshaw and Jeff Ward. Those are the riders Dungey passed on the all-time wins list this season. If he could manage another eight win season in 2016, Dungey would move ahead of Bob Hannah and Rick Johnson. It's clear Dungey is moving into the all-time elite category after 2015. There were two new Supercross winners this season—Eli Tomac and Cole Seely. They were the 58th and 59th riders in the history of AMA Supercross to earn victories in the series. There was a highly-touted rookie class that en- tered Supercross this season, with Dean Wilson, Cole Seely, Blake Baggett and Jason Anderson. Wilson went down early with injury, but the rest of the Class of 2015 acquitted themselves very well. Seely was the top of the lot, winning a race and earning third in the final standings. I'm still not quite certain how Seely could be considered a rookie however, since he'd already competed in a total of 11 Supercross races as far back as four years ago. Baggett surprisingly found his legs in Supercross, a discipline that's never been his strongest and broke through to have a very solid season finishing fifth and Anderson also showed flashes of brilliance on the new Husqvarna. It's safe to say all four Class of '15 rookies will be a factor in the years to come. Monster Energy Supercross is possibly the most demanding motorcycle racing series in the world. A brutal stretch of 17 races in 18 weeks, it's a minor miracle if a rider makes it through unscathed. An illustration of how difficult the schedule is on riders is the fact that only four riders, Dungey, Tomac, Seely and Baggett made every race. All the more miraculous was that Dungey only finished off the podium once. Vicki Golden made history by becoming the first female to qualify for an evening program. How long will it be before a female makes a Main one wonders? Whatever the case, Golden etched her name in the record books in the final round in Las Vegas. Looking forward, Dungey's road ahead, based on history, gets tougher. He's the 10th rider in series history to win the Supercross title at least twice, but the list of riders who've won at least three gets considerably smaller, with only Bob Hannah, Jeff Stanton, Jeremy McGrath, Ricky Carmichael and Ryan Villopoto attaining that lofty feat. CN SUPERCROSS 2015 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives