Team Makita Suzuki’s Ivan Tedesco raced to his best 250 Supercross Main Event position at Saturday’s drama-packed St. Louis seventh round, as team mate Ricky Carmichael and arch rival James Stewart both crashed out. Tedesco led for half the 20-lap race at the Edward Jones Dome until former Champion Chad Reed forced through to take the race win and the series lead. But reigning World and AMA Supercross Champion Carmichael pulled out on the opening lap following a crash, then case-out on the whoops.
“I felt really good for the first half of the race," said Tedesco, "then I started riding really tight and making mistakes. But that’s the only way to learn to win and to lead the race. Things really turned around for me a couple of races ago and I feel like I’m being more aggressive and riding more like myself.” While Tedesco was out front, Carmichael got caught up with another rider at the start and was forced to retire.
Makita Suzuki Team Manager Roger DeCoster blamed no one for the unfortunate result, saying: “We think that some suspension parts were damaged when Ricky tangled with another rider at the beginning of the race. There was no error on anyone’s part and no one was at fault. It was a fluke and that’s just racing.”
“It’s a shame that things turned out this way," said a disappointed Carmichael, "because my lap times were really good in practice and I think this would have been a good race. But next week we go to Atlanta and that’s always a special race for me because a lot of my friends and family come out to watch. It’s a long season and we still have a lot of races to go,” said a more upbeat Carmichael. “We’ve just started the East Coast rounds and nothing has been decided yet.” Heading into the Atlanta round, Tedesco looks forward to racing in a new venue and Carmichael aims to regain the lead in the points chase.
The results for the 250 Main Event are as follows: 1 Chad Reed (Yamaha), 2 Ivan Tedesco (Suzuki), 3 Ernesto Fonseca (Honda), 4 Nick Wey (Honda), 5 Travis Preston (Honda), 6 Michael Byrne (Kawasaki), 7 Mike Brown (Suzuki), 8 Tim Terry (Honda), 9 Ryan Clark (Honda), 10 Jason Thomas (Honda).
The Championship Points after 7 rounds are: 1 Reed 149, 2 Carmichael 140, 3 Stewart 132, 4 Tedesco 108, 5 Wey 103, 6 Byrne 103, 7 LaRocco 95, 8 Fonseca 94, 9 Preston 79, 10 McGrath 67.
And finally, World Supercross Points (after 9 rounds): 1 Carmichael 192, 2 Stewart 191, 3 Reed 189, 4 Tedesco 155, 5 Wey 148, 6 Byrne 148, 7 Thomas 110, 8 Gibson 101, 9 Clark 98, 10 Evans 81.
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