Words and Photos: Jeff Kardas

With Houston in the books and San Francisco on the horizon, the 2009 Monster Energy Supercross Series is now rolling forward with a full head of steam. The top 10 in the Supercross class are finally starting to sort itself out, and now that we've had a taste of the Lites Eastern Region lineup, some clear winners have emerged there as well. Let's check out What Really Happened in Houston.

First things first, and that'll be about the guy that got first - James Stewart. L&M Team Manager Larry Brooks stated publicly that they'd started from scratch with Stewart's chassis and suspension setup last week, since Bubba was clearly struggling just a bit with it so far this year. James himself claimed they went way back to the settings he'd been using for the US Open back in October (his first race on the Yamaha) and went down that path as opposed to whatever path they'd chosen to follow since then. It appears to have worked. People on the track, in the pits, and in the stands all looked at each other with a knowing glance after witnessing Stewart's first practice session: He's BAAAaaack.

It was the first time this season that watching James ride made the hair stand up on the back of your neck, as Sir James was clearly 'feeling it' while getting flat off the faces of the triple, leaping down the backside of a camel jump, and prancing off the tops of the step-on-on-on section. When his lap time wasn't enough to keep him atop the leader board, he simply went out and put in one more fast one, which was typically about a second faster than his previous fast lap. The realization that the real James was back brought out mixed emotions for many. While it's tough to argue against how fun and, dare we say it, pleasurable it is to watch Bubba at one with his steed, the joy was tempered by the fact that this may spell the end of any more good racing up front in the Supercross class.

Now, in all fairness to the defending champion Chad Reed, he's been riding like never before this season, which may have made James seem a little more, uh, human thus far. Unfortunately, Reed was way off his game in Houston, as it seemed (and he later admitted) that he was really struggling with the track/dirt/bike all day. He fell over twice and crashed once in the second practice session alone. Then again, maybe he came to the realization that his rival had just kicked it up a notch and that went straight to his head, beating him into submission mentally before the gate even dropped. Nah, that's not bloody likely, as the Aussie has proven his mental toughness over and over again, so we're going to chalk it up to a bad weekend and/or combo of things for Speedy Reedy and that he'll pull it together for San Francisco this Saturday. He needs to get a couple of wins, and if he can start up front ahead of Stewart, with any luck he can get away and out of site early and keep it that way until the finish. After four rounds, Stewart has already made up much of what he lost after A1's incident, and sits now only 9 points behind the Aussie, in 2nd place (tied with Josh Grant).

Historically, San Francisco has been the site of a few truly epic mud supercross races. Let's face it, putting a round this early in the year at an open stadium on the northern Pacific coast is flirting with disaster, yet the race remains planted firmly at the beginning of the schedule every year. Why is that? It's because that market is strong for dirt bikes, is significant in the history of the sport (or, at least in the history of motocross), and it's just plain cool to have a race there. Everyone loves to visit the city, from the riders to the fans to everyone else who makes the trek, and the possibility of throwing a mudder into the mix of the season drama is always a good thing too. San Francisco's AT&T Park is home to the Giants baseball team, which means it's - what else - a baseball diamond. Baseball stadiums are superior for building supercross tracks than football stadiums (which are typically found in the eastern region), and are more often than not open-air. The downside of a football stadium, as was painfully evident at Houston's Reliant Stadium last weekend, is that the track layout is severely restricted. It limits the Dirt Wurx crew by the nature of its sharply rectangular layout - long and narrow - which means no fancy infield oddities like we've come to enjoy this year in stadiums such as Angel Stadium or Phoenix's Chase Field. What we end up with is a bunch of jump-filled straights connected with 90's or 180's and nothing 'unusual', which in the case of Houston, resulted in a really boring, average and un-inspiring track design. While it was clear the jump combos were quite difficult for many riders (such as the table-table-table stepon section), for spectators it was fairly ho-hum when compared to this season's interesting tracks thus far. Having said all of that, Stewart pointed out that he was happy to finally have a 'technical track' to race, while Reed stated he never jibed with it and never got into a flow. One thing almost everyone agreed on - the dirt was luscious. Slick on the big sweeper coming through the first turn? Of course, when's the last time a sweeper wasn't slick, especially after having any berms and ruts cleaned up after every single race?

Now, back to San Francisco and it's baseball field layout. As famous as it is for being a mudder (which looks highly unlikely this year, by the way), it's equally infamous for being a glorified Arenacross track, with lap times in the low 40-second range. Didn't we just say that baseball stadiums usually have bigger and better tracks, and that SF is in a baseball stadium? Yes, we did. We asked Dirt Wurx's Norm Bickley what the deal was with San Fran, and why the laptimes are always so short despite the greater floor space? "Because the dirt is so expensive there, and it costs so much to haul it into the stadium since it comes from so far away, we just can't afford to bring in any more than we have been". Coupled with that are the added expenses that the city itself brings onto the event, such as the various taxes and fees for permits, additional police to 'monitor' the track building so that none of the quite liberal environmental laws or restrictions are violated and, well, you end up with a minimalist track design. The upside of all of this? There's plenty of open infield space for photographer's to access to produce a wider variety of images from the event! Speaking of which, if you haven't checked out the Photographer's Perspective bit from last week, take a peak - it should always be an insightful read for aspiring photogs.

Houston was the Supercross Lites Eastern Regional opening round, held a month before the typical opener date of late February. This year, the East riders get 4 weeks off to think about how their weekend went. Here's who we think will be happy or sad with their performances.

Happy
Christophe Pourcel. The Comeback Kid.
Matt Lemoine. Surprisingly fast.
Nico Izzi. Solid.
Darryn Durham. See #2.
Daniel Blair. Top 10 privateer.

Sad
Austin Stroupe. See below.
Martin Davalos. Disappointing.
Branden Jesseman. Dismal.
Phil Nicoletti. No main.
Matt Goerke. Potential.

Let's start with Monster Pro Circuit's Christophe Pourcel. His 2nd Lites win in three attempts (the other two coming back in 2007), the 2006 MX2 FIM World Champion hadn't raced a dirt bike in nearly two years.

He took the track walk with fellow Frenchy Ben Coisy, which certainly added some comfort in what must have been a nerve-wracking return to racing for the youngest of the two Pourcel brothers. Down and out for over a year after a severe lower spinal cord/pelvis injury, it was questionable whether Chris would return at all, let alone even walk again. Coming back onto the track over 20 pounds lighter than his last U.S. appearance (which is really hard to believe, because he was a skinny little guy then), he claimed to be racing under a no-pressure situation with Mitch and the boys. He completely blew away his "B" practice session by the tune of nearly 5 seconds per lap, then got out to a solid start in Lites Heat #1, right behind perennial front-runner Bret Metcalfe. While Pourcel was able to keep the pressure on a seemingly even faster Metcalfe, he seemingly played it cool to come across in 2nd, which no doubt boosted his confidence as Metcalfe was on everyone's 'sure-to-podium' list that we saw. Pourcel proceeded to holeshot the main and sprint to a gap over Nico Izzi and Metcalfe, and was never really challenged. Later in the race, however, his teammate Austin Stroupe was clearly gaining time on the front 3, but a series of mistakes kept him from being up there to begin with.

Speaking of Stroupe, we put him on our 'Sad' list because he must be coming out of Houston with a few unexpected grey hairs (which will soon be dyed blond). It was a hectic night for the young North Carolinian, for sure. In his second season racing Lites supercross, Stroupe appeared to be the fastest rider on the track... for a lap or two at a time, at least. Lots of mistakes, off-track excursions and run-ins with other riders resulted in an extremely intense main event for Stroupe-Loop, and he's probably just now calming down for one crazy night of racing.

What kicked off Stroupe's nutty night was the battle he and Matt Lemoine had in their heat race. While everyone probably expected Lemoine to be quick, it's not likely that anyone expected him to be showing the likes of Stroupe a wheel in every corner for the second heat race of the season. Lemoine rode awesome all night until running into a variety of trouble in the main event, which relegated him a lap down and nowhere to go but up for round 2 in Atlanta.

Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Nico Izzi got a great start and ran the pace early in the Lites main. We say 'early' because he really appeared to drop anchor just before the halfway point after Metcalfe got by him. Up until then, though, Nico showed a lot of promise all day by running laps on the same second as Pourcel and Stroupe, and then getting a good enough gap over 4th in the Main to not let his anchor dragging behind him make a difference. And this brings up another point about the East regional Lites guys - talent depth is fairly shallow this year. Once you look past the top 10, there are a slew of names that are either complete rookies or that are established non-qualifiers that were able to make the main event. Add to that, there were only 44 riders signed up (and only 38 in the 450's) and, well, the competition just isn't there this year. However, as Chad Reed says, "It is what it is" and if that's the current state of the sport in the Lites class, then that's it's current state, and that's that.

Moving on, Ryan Villopoto led his first laps of a Supercross class main event in Houston, and it may have opened the flood gates for a lot more of the same. After following his nemesis Mike Alessi through the esses after the start, RV2 made short work of getting by and putting down probably three of the fastest laps of his life. Then Stewart passed him, but then RV passed him back, so the kid's not giving up. It is an interesting bit to note that at some point, RV's been a bit of an understudy of both James and Chad, and he considers them both to be friendly rivals, which may or may not make a difference while out on the race track. Regardless, that's going to be a tough trio to get in the middle of for the rest of the season, so don't be surprised if Houston's podium is repeated over and over and over for the rest of the season.

A couple of riders we don't expect to see up there anytime soon? Davi Millsaps and Josh Hill. With all due respect to both of these super-talented riders (each of whom won a race last season), they don't seem to be getting one bit faster and more motivated as the season enters it's 2nd quarter. Why? Rumors abound, for sure, and maybe nobody but these guys themselves really know the answer, but then again maybe they don't. Recent rumors: Millsaps is having difficulties in his relationships with both family and 'mate', and is looking to make changes ASAP. Let's face it, the kid isn't dumb and he sees his career falling through his fingers like sands in the hourglass, so he'll make the changes: In fact, he already may have done so. How about Hill? He may have re-injured that shoulder, as he reportedly crashed hard again last week while practicing at the Yamaha track. He could muster only the 15th fastest lap in Houston and ended up 11th in the Main.

Interesting side note: Tedesco, Short and Ferry all put down faster laps than previous front-runners Josh Grant and Kevin Windham in Houston. Chalk it up to a love/hate relationship with the track, or the fact that Team Honda (minus Millsaps) are really getting up to speed and Ferry is, well, getting up to Ferry speed right about the time he normally does.

Special props must be delivered to the following riders for particularly remarkable rides in Houston;

Kyle Chisholm - Stewie's teammate and homey finally made a Supercross main event after working on "about a thousand" starts during the week. Congrats Kyle!

Jacob Saylor - the journeyman GP racer slash Euro SX master meandered back to this side of the pond to show the kids how it's done by snagging an 11th in the Lites main. Way to go, Jake.

Tyler Wharton - nice heat race holeshot.

And again, Daniel Blair - a full-on privateer working out of a bonafied 'beat-up white chevy van' (because they didn't think the MotoXXX box van would make it from SoCal), Blair was dicing with the best all night.

Vince Friese - the rookie can ride a Lites bike in Supercross better than a 450 - nice ride that ended up on the ground.

We can't end this What Really Happened without mentioning a couple more tidbits. First of all, what an excellent concept and execution for a show-opening bit by Wes Nobles, who came up with the Bon Jovi 'Dead or Alive' parody for Bubba to act out in opening ceremonies. The crowd and everyone gathered backstage were loving it, and James himself seemed thrilled with it as he prepared for it. He was all smiles like a kid on Christmas morning before getting out on the stage and smashing his Guitar Hero guitar in front of the crowd. That was a good one to watch.

And finally, we must say that whatever Ccridergear.com is and whatever they plan to do, they really put some style points on the line when they decided to run baby blue bikes with blue hubs and white rims, and no indication whatsoever what brand of bike they were actually riding. In fact, there were no other sponsor logos on the bike at all. Pretty bizarre, no doubt, and many folks were left guessing - were these CCM's these guys were riding? Answer: No, Suzuki's and guess what, they won't be eligible for contingency... oh wait, there is no Suzuki contingency for pro level racing, so that's not a concern. With riders like Jase Lewis, Ben Ritter and Sean Hackley, Jr. (who was out injured for Houston but plans to return for Atlanta), they'd have likely mopped up a fair bit of contingency this season.

That about covers everything that needed said about Houston, and should lead you into San Francisco with a full head of steam. The Western Regional Lites series resumes, and we'll get to see if J-Law took his off-weekend to go work on starts, or work on finding secluded spots at Havasu. We'll also get to see if James retains his mojo from Houston, and if Reed can regain his. So check back here at motocross.com to see for yourself, with practice photos, race reports and What Really Happened: San Francisco.