Daytona Recap

For those of you that caught the Daytona Supercross on Speed this past weekend you sure were given a treat. Daytona was one of the most interesting races of the season with more than its fair share of off the wall events taking place.

Starting off with the heat races, how about Josh Hill holding off Chad Reed for the win in heat 2 of the 450 class? Or better yet how about the list of factory riders failing to qualify straight from the heat race including Millsaps, Tedesco, Wey, Grant, and Troy Adams. If I were paying a rider six or seven figures to race a motorcycle, I sure hope they could qualify for the main event. Luckily enough for the Honda boys Millsaps and Tedesco went 1-2 in the LCQ for the final 2 spots in the main. Grant on the other hand had a little tougher time in Daytona as he took a hard sample in the LCQ and was carted off by the Asterisk crew.

Moving on to the Lites main event, we saw top runners Austin Stroupe and Martin Davalos come together yet again on the first lap which resulted in the 981bike cart-wheeling off the track and exiting the race. Davalos on the other hand kept his KTM on two wheels and made his way to the front of the pack where he nearly led the entire race until he was passed in the late laps by the French connection of Christophe Pourcel. Pourcel would take the win, with Davalos in second, and hard charger Nico Izzi rounding out the third spot of the podium. Another crazy event that took place during the lites main was on the parade lap when Blake Wharton Ran into Wil Hahn where the track crosses the starting line. Hahn remounted and managed a 5th place in the main event.

The 450 main was the final race of the night and the one everyone had been waiting for. When the gate dropped it was the Rockstar Makita Suzuki bikes of Mike Alessi and Michael Byrne who looked to have the holeshot with the number 7 Yamaha coming up the inside. Entering the first corner though it was the front wheel of Stewart that washed out on the slippery Daytona grass and got into the rear wheel of Byrne. Byrne and Stewart were both sent cart-wheeling through the air and it seemed as if 3/4 of the field was on the ground within the blink of an eye. It was Alessi who made it through clean and took the lead with the number 338 Yamaha hot on his heals. By the second lap J-Law was out front and on the gas. At the halfway point Lawrence had pulled over a 10 second lead on the rest of the pack, but Reed was on the move and had no intentions of losing.

By lap 15 Reed had made his way up to the fatigued Lawrence and made the pass as Lawrence went wide on a right hander and put up little fight for the position. Lawrence had a big enough lead to where he cruised out the last few laps as Reed was in a class of his own. Stewart meanwhile continued to fight his way through the pack with no visor on his helmet and a bent up bike. On the last lap it was Millsaps who found his way up to long time rival,Mike Alessi, where he made no intention of making a clean pass as he ran it in hard on Alessi putting him on the ground. When the checkers flew it was Reed who took his second win in a row, with Lawrence in a comfortable second, Millsaps third, and Alessi re-mounting for the fourth spot. Stewart meanwhile continued to fight through the pack and finish an impressive seventh considering the circumstances.

With all said and done at Daytona it seems as if there were a few answered questions by the end of the night. One being the fact that Reed has more than a shot at the championship as he leaves Daytona with an 11 point lead over Stewart. Second being the fact that Jason Lawrence is the real deal, not just anyone can take a second place in their first ever 450 Supercross after leading nearly the whole race with up to a 10 second lead at the halfway mark. The final point made at Daytona was that no matter how fast you can go, if you're on the ground, you're prolly not going to win. We saw this in both classes with the two front runners Austin Stroupe and James Stewart. That's all for this week folks!

Over and out!
MS 767