Reed 2nd in St Louis to keep title dream alive
YAMAHA (April 21, 2008)
Yamaha’s Chad Reed battled through the pain of his fractured shoulder to take a decent second position to main title rival Kevin Windham in front of almost 49,000 fans last weekend at the Edward Jones Dome in St Louis for the fifteenth round of seventeen in the Monster Energy AMA Supercross championship, also an FIM World Championship.
Reed seized the lead on the first lap of the main event, taking place just one week after his heavy practice crash in Detroit, but was powerless to prevent Windham from seizing control. The result was nevertheless the Australian’s eleventh podium of the season on the San Manuel YZ450F and means that his points lead was only cut to 13 with two races to go.
Yamaha’s Chad Reed
“I was a long way from 100 percent tonight, going from twelfth last week to second is huge for me,” he said. “I was back and forth this week seeing doctors and trying to just get everything taken care of. We made huge gains this week, and there were a lot of people who supported me. Unfortunately, we’ve been in this position a lot, so you learn over the years. Last weekend was just survival, while this weekend, I felt pretty good in practice. The track just got really gnarly in the main event, and the whoops were really tough, and I couldn’t hang with Windham. I had to let go of my pride and look at the bigger picture, and that’s tough. I felt, for the rest of the track, I had what it took to win; I just didn’t have what it took in the whoops.”
“I feel like I’m still in control of this thing,” he added. “To salvage a second this weekend, it was huge for me, and I think it was huge for my competitors. You can see that a lot of them are really motivated, still we got out there, got a good start, and I did what I had to do.”
Reed’s team-mate Nathan Ramsey took a season-best finish with fourth place. Josh Hill was sixteenth.
AMA Motocross Champion Grant Langston has missed the entire Indoor campaign with an eye affliction but hopes to begin riding very soon to prepare for his Outdoor defence. "He's coming over this week to start riding so that we can check him out, but we're still not completely sure he's going to be ready for Glen Helen,” said team manager Jimmy Perry. “But that is the plan, for him to be ready to go come Glen Helen. His eye seems to be healing very slowly, so we'll have to wait and see."
The penultimate Supercross meeting takes place at the Qwest Field in Seattle next weekend.
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