More From Las Vegas 2006 AMA Supercross

The 2006 Las Vegas Supercross was easily the most eagerly anticipated single motocross or supercross race in recent memory, and it didn't disappoint. Nobody wanted to see a first-turn fall or something like that determine the outcome of the AMA Supercross Championship. In a perfect world, most people seemed to just want to see the top three get out front and have a chance to race for it—while a few others preferred that the top three start out in the back of the pack and race for it while going through the pack.

Unfortunately, though, if it weren't for the title on the line, the Vegas Supercross main would've probably been considered boring, as the top three riders never passed one another at any point in the race. But still, with a championship on the line, the pressure was palpable, and all three riders rode like champions—they all put in 20 hard, near-flawless laps. In some respects, it's a shame someone had to lose. But in order for there to be a winner, there has to be losers, and there can only be one winner—well, normally.

In supercross, we like to confuse the casual fan with dual championships, so that at the end of the day, we could have two separate champions with championship titles that seem to convey that the title James Stewart won means more in the SX world than the title Ricky Carmichael won. James Stewart won the World Supercross Championship, while Ricky Carmichael won his fifth AMA National Supercross Championship. Any fan of the sport knows that there is much more prestige in the AMA title, but any casual fan wouldn't be likely to understand that at face value. One is a WORLD championship, after all.

But James Stewart made a great point regarding that championship in the Friday press conference when he said that this was the first year that all of the championship contenders raced the World rounds. If you think about it, the fact that he won the longer championship against the same two riders should add credence to the thought that at least this year's World Supercross Championship holds plenty of prestige. More than the AMA title? Maybe. Maybe not.

It's hard to comprehend that a title like the World Supercross Championship can actually gain prestige while it's going on, rather than hold the prestige coming into the series. All three riders were using the World rounds in Canada for a purpose other than actually winning the World Championship. James Stewart was trying to gain confidence after a horrible MX season, and a bizarre US Open. Stewart did that, and then some, as he dominated in Canada. Mission accomplished.

Carmichael went into Canada to use the races as a race-testing ground for his new 450, just as he did last year with his new RM250. He was also using it as a yard stick to see where he stacked up against his new 450-mounted rivals, James Stewart and Chad Reed. Carmichael, too, accomplished his missions, as by the time he showed up at Anaheim I, he was up to par with Stewart, who had whooped him handily in the Great White North. This "dry run" in Canada ultimately resulted in Carmichael's 5th AMA Supercross Championship, and his 14th AMA National Championship.

Reed went to Canada expecting to find out where he fit into the picture on his new mount as well. Like Stewart, he was riding a brand-new 450 in a brand-new discipline for that bike. Although he landed on the podium at both Canadian rounds, Reed was well off the pace. Unfortunately for him, he didn't seem to catch the pace until late in the series, after he had suffered a separated shoulder and then ditched his outdoor testing for more supercross testing when he found himself in the championship fight. Come Vegas, Reed was game, but it was the start that made the difference, and he got the worst start of the three.

The other reason for the Vegas hype was the Dave Coombs Sr. 125cc East/West Shootout, and as has become the norm, it wasn't won by either of the newly crowned regional champs, but rather one of the hot contenders for the title who lost their championship and had something to prove in Vegas. This time, it was Team Honda's Andrew Short. This was actually his second Shootout win, as his first-ever SX win came as a member of the MotoworldRacing.com Suzuki team in 2003 in Vegas. That was the night that Stewart had that unforgettable endo onto the start straightaway in front of the mechanics' area. Eastern champ Davi Millsaps challenged Short early in the race, only to crash with a few laps left, and Western champ Grant Langston didn't win the race because he didn't race in it, since he injured himself in a Press Day crash.

"You know, I think with the track that dry and not really being prepared, it was covered with little pebbles and whatever, and in that rhythm section close to the grandstands, we were going triple-triple-triple-single, and I guess on the third triple, as I went to take off, I don't know if I got wheelspin or hit a hole, but when I took off, my nose was down and I was coming up short," Langston said. "I tried to do what I could, and I cased the third one, and I was going over, and then I hit that single, and I think it threw me straight into the ground. I think that's what happened. I was winded at first, and I went to pull my knees into my chest because I couldn't get any air, and when I used my hands to grab my knees, I remember feeling this pain coming from my hand, and when I looked, I could see where the glove ends and the jersey begins, I could see a chicane in my wrist, and I just assumed it was broken. I figured I snapped my wrist and it was done, because more often than not, when you see that, it's broken. Then I was angry, and I was yelling."

Langston got out there late, and the other four riders (Reed, Stewart, Carmichael and Millsaps) were already doing the triple-triple-triple-single where he fell. "I thought about that yesterday, and it's tough to say [if getting out there late was a contributing factor]," Langston said. "I didn't realize that they were riding already, and my bike wasn't ready, and I was getting frustrated because I couldn't get my stuff together, so I came out there and I was trying to do everything that they were doing. I did that rhythm section on the third lap—at least I went triple-triple. I don't know. But I started feeling comfortable, and my mechanic was thinking I was going to stop right before that happened, and I was just thinking, 'Oh, this is cool. I'm just riding around having fun.' I don't know. It was just a real bummer. I was looking forward to running the number-one plate in the East/West Shootout, and I thought it was my kind of track with the big, speedway turn. I used to ride speedway as a kid, so flat, hardpack left turns are my specialty, and the track's full of them. And then the Toyota truck and the extra bonus, and then all of a sudden... I have a Toyota truck already, but I have two houses, so it would've been nice to have one at each house."

Langston isn't ruling out Hangtown just yet. "At this point, I've spoken to my doctor in California, and I'm going in for an MRI, but he seems to think after talking to the EMT, he says that he's seen that identical injury, and he obviously understands that it's my throttle hand, and he seems to think that I'll be at Hangtown," Langston said. "He's pretty aggressive, and normally if he says he thinks I could be there, I'm pretty sure that I'll be there. There isn't really a good part of your body to injure as a racer, but there are some that are better than others. As long as I can be at Hangtown and be okay to race and score some points—top 5 or top 10 or whatever—and ease into it, that's all I ask. It's too soon to tell right now, but we've done our testing, and I've done motos, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise for me because I normally go in and try and win from the first moto on, and sometimes that has hurt me. So maybe going with the approach of building on where I start, that might be good."

Langston said that he wasn't sure which hurt worse, the right wrist that he injured in practice or the fact that it was keeping him from challenging AMA Eastern Region Supercross Lites Champion Davi Millsaps in the Dave Coombs East-West Shootout. "It kind of sucks to go from such a high of winning the championship last week to sitting here in the stands, but I guess the silver lining to that dark cloud is that if this happened last week, it would be much harder to accept," Langston said. "I think I'll make the outdoors, so this is not such a big deal, but it would have been nice to be out there because this was going to be my last Supercross race in the Lites class, and I would have been able to ride with the 1W. It's easy to say that I think I could have won when I'm sitting on the sidelines, but it would have been interesting. The big picture now is just being ready for the outdoors."

Langston also said that while he knows he will be back in the big-bike class in 2007, he is not sure where that will be. With indications that Pro Circuit's Mitch Payton will be putting together a 450 team for 2007, Langston said that he is willing to sit tight to see if he can put a deal together with Payton. "Mitch is getting all of his stuff put together, and until he is done I want to give him first choice for sure," Langston said. "We have had a great time working together, and we have a great working relationship and friendship. So until stuff gets finalized, I'm not going to make any decisions."

Millsaps injured his knee in Dallas, where he was scheduled to make his Supercross class debut, and hasn't raced since. "Honestly, I don't really know what happened to it," Millsaps said. "I mean, I know—I have an idea—but I didn't really pay attention to what my doctor was telling me, and all I know is that it hurts. But I fell on it on Wednesday again, and I hurt it to where it was when I first did it. It had gotten to the point where it was all right, and then Wednesday I re-hurt it. He said it's going to take some time without riding, but when I'm riding, I keep dabbing or falling or stuff like that, it just keeps getting worse and worse. It doesn't do anything to it. I can't hurt it any worse—it's just painful—but I can keep it from healing. So, what do I do? I've got to ride."

Millsaps was sporting a new clean-cut haircut. "I lost a bet to Martin [Davalos]'s mechanic," Millsaps said. "It was supposed to be shaved totally, but I got out of that. I bet that Martin would podium again after his first one, and his mechanic bet against him. He had five races, dude! C'mon! Oh well."

There were lots of bikes running special graphics in Vegas, including Ryan Clark's Team Solitaire, which was running some pink graphics on black plastic. "I just thought it might be fun to do something different for Vegas—especially for the guys on my team," Clark said. "They've done such a fantastic job all year, and doing something kind of cool and different at the end of the season is cool. We tried to turn the bikes pink and black. I try to steer clear of pink at all costs, but I think it looks pretty good on the bike with the black, and everyone like Hammerhead and ASV came through with anodizing stuff for us, and Ride Engineering making us special clamps, I think it looks awesome. I'm pumped to be holding it up for pink this weekend—not the singer."

Clark is auctioning off his custom-painted boots for a fallen comrade. "My boots are custom-painted by an artist by the name of Andy Jenkins—the guy that designed our bikes this year," Clark said. "And he did an awesome job. Early in the week, we're going to put them up on eBay and auction them off—I'm just wearing them this one race, so they shouldn't be too beat up—and we're going to give all of the money to James Marshall. Hopefully, everyone can check in at www.teamsolitaire.com sometime next week and we'll get that auction going and try to make some money for James."

Michael Holigan, owner of the BooKoo Honda team, explained his team's new flavor of graphics. "We're in Vegas for the final round of the supercross series, so we decided to pull out a different flavor, and we parked Citrus this week and brought out Wild Berry," he said, referring to the flavors of BooKoo Energy Drink.

Prior to the Las Vegas Supercross, if Makita Suzuki mechanic Mike Gosselaar was nervous about the possibility of seeing his rider Ricky Carmichael lose the Amp'd Mobile/AMA Supercross title, he didn't let on. "Not at all," Gosselaar said. "It's all gravy, just like he [Carmichael] said. We haven't done anything differently coming in here. It was business as usual." When asked about his future with Carmichael after it was announced that Carmichael would be contesting only a limited schedule in 2007, Gosselaar said that he didn't know what Suzuki's plans were. "We've still got to sit down and talk about that," Gosselaar said. "I hope that I'm in there."

AMA Motocross/Supercross Manager Steve Whitelock said that while Las Vegas fans may have been witnessing the end of the Ricky Carmichael era, it was bound to happen, and it doesn't mean the end of the era of great AMA Supercross racing. "This happens all the time," Whitelock said. "Guys come up, and they're so brilliant, and then they go away, but there is always going to be somebody to replace them. There's going to be the Stewart era, and then maybe the Millsaps or the Villopoto era, and then somebody is going to come along and dethrone those guys." Having said that, Whitelock also gave Carmichael props for what he has accomplished during his career. "Ricky has left a big mark, and I do think it's going to be hard for anyone to come along and leave a bigger mark," Whitelock said. "It's sad that he is going away, but it's fun that he is going to do some of the races that he likes. He's been a good champion."

Makita Suzuki team manager Roger DeCoster said that he believed the sport was in fact witnessing the end of an era after the Carmichael announcement, although the team was completely prepared for whatever decision Carmichael ultimately made. "It definitely is coming to an end, but we knew from the beginning, when we made our deal with Ricky before the start of last year, that the third year was an option for him to go on a limited schedule," DeCoster said. "We were fine with that from the beginning." DeCoster said that although Suzuki was hoping that Carmichael would decide to run a full schedule in 2007, the company completely respects his decision not to. "Ricky was honest about it up front," DeCoster said. "He could have said nothing, decided to go for the full year and then just raced a few races to see how things were going, and if it didn't go well, he could have backed off, and that would have been much more difficult for us if he slacked off during the year and didn't care any more. Now we know where we stand."

Having worked with virtually every great American and World Champion over the past three decades, Roger DeCoster said that when all the things that make a great motocross champion are taken into account, Ricky Carmichael stands head and shoulders above the rest. "He is just awesome, and one of the things that Ricky is really, really good at - and that if I was an up-and-coming rider, that I would really watch and try to learn from him - is how he has been able to create an entourage around him that is all high-quality people. Everybody that hangs out with Ricky, his close circle, is a high-quality person. And I have never seen anybody as dedicated 24/7 as Ricky. You know that I have worked with a lot of great champions: Ricky Johnson, Hannah, Bayle, Johnny O'Mara, David Bailey, and Eric Geboers and Dave Thorpe in Europe. I've been lucky to work with all of them, but none of them - including myself when I was racing - were as dedicated 24/7 and 12 months a year as Ricky is. Ricky has just been outstanding in that regard."

Former AMA and World Motocross Champion Brad Lackey, the only American ever to win the 500cc World MX title, was on hand in Las Vegas to witness the historic finale to the AMP'D Mobile/AMA Supercross Series and offered the following comments: "This title chase has been crazy exciting," Lackey said before the race. "This is a very tight circuit, and with live TV and all the hype that has gone into it, I'm really glad I'm not one of those three guys. I really feel that Bubba is fast, and he's on a roll, so he'll win the race. And if Carmichael doesn't get ahead of Reed right away, he won't be able to pass him. So, I predict that Bubba will win the race and Reed will win the championship, but don't put much stock in my opinion because I don't know very much."

Two-time AMA 125cc National Motocross Champion Micky Dymond got it a little more right with his prediction. "I think that just like they always do, those three guys are going to go to the front," Dymond said. "It would be nice if they could start up there and then just run the whole race and battle it out. I kind of think that Bubba will probably be the fastest. I know that Reed has done great to even be in it right now. Carmichael, I don't know why, but in my mind I really want to see him win the championship. But all of them deserve it."

Josh Grant had a crash during the week and was sporting a sore shoulder. He wasn't really up to his normal rapid pace in practice, but come race time, he was flying again. He was attempting to pass Mike Alessi for second when he went down. He still finished fourth.

Eric Sorby had a taped ankle in the pits. "I just tried to do that triple-quad rhythm section and I got wheelspin, and I cased it pretty bad, and I guess I sprained my ankle," Sorby said. "I'm not going to try to make it worse, since I'm going to be riding a 450 in the outdoors." He'll be riding for the Maestro Suzuki team.

We ran into "Rookie", Darren Sorrensen, outside the Yamaha pits, and our reported confused him with his brother Derek, who works for the Red Bull KTM team. He says he should be back in action come Hangtown.

Michael Byrne slid out at the end of the first rhythm section and his hand got caught on the handlebars, causing his thumb to get stuck, and it tore a ligament in his throttle-hand thumb. He'll be out indefinitely.

James Stewart finished out the World Supercross Championship with 10 wins and the championship, and the AMA Championship with 8 wins and second in the championship. Being in the championship fight didn't distract him. "It wasn't hard at all [to focus]," Stewart said. "I prepare myself during the week, and I felt good. I felt like I can come in here and at least try to get the win, and if things went good, to get the World title and have a shot at the AMA. I felt awesome. I just really have to give it up to my mom and my dad. You guys just don't understand, just being in the gutter that we were as a family after last year in the outdoors, and the US Open, and to turn it around like this. They never gave up on me, so this means a lot. We as a family, we never gave up, and I think you guys can see that now. It's for the people around me. After last year, it was [a] very small [group], but those people know who they were. My family, Beeker over there, Anthony [Paggio], and my team, of course. It's awesome."

He never quite got away from Carmichael, but he stayed just out of kicking distance. "I was giving it my all," Stewart said. "He [RC] rode great tonight, and this was one of those tracks that you can really over-ride, and it was just awesome to win in this circumstance—having the title on the line, and also having him right there for his last supercross race, full-time. It's just the way to go out. I could hear him in Thunder Valley—or whatever it is—when we were out by ourselves. When I would let off, I could hear him still on the gas, so I was checking up on him."

Stewart started the race with a big holeshot. "To me, it's important to get good starts, and tonight, I knew I had to get one," Stewart said. "I felt like when I had to get a start, I actually got one this year. It was great to pull the holeshot and lead all 20 laps. It was good."

This marked Stewart's first complete Supercross class campaign. "It's always a relief to make it through a season healthy and without any injuries," Stewart said. "It feels good. I've got to give it up to the people over there. I bust my ass on the track every day, and I've just got to give it up to those two people sitting back there—they know who they are, my mom and dad. They got me through it. I finished 18 races healthy, and I can't ask for anything else. We can go back and say I should've done this different, but I can't. I'm moving forward. We've got a week off, and then I'm looking forward to racing outdoors."

Ricky Carmichael now has 14 AMA National titles. If you add up Rick Johnson and Jeff Ward's AMA National titles, you get Ricky Carmichael's AMA National titles. "I had just told myself not to be nervous and just go out there and ride hard," Carmichael said. "I had been a little bit better than Chad at a lot of the races this year, so I kept telling myself that, and he had picked it up, but I still was saying, 'I can do it, I can do it.' I tried to set my sight on James, because I knew if I did that, I would get the result. Actually, James and I, we were cat and mouse there for a while. He was 3 seconds ahead, maybe, the whole time, and it was just give and take, and I could never quite reel him in. But we were pretty close. I just tried to set my sights on him like I did at the beginning of the season when we were having all those battles, and I knew if I did that and didn't try to just beat Chad, that we could get it done. I knew deep down in my heart that it was going to be good. One side of my mind was saying, 'It's not going to be good. You're in a slump.' But, I just had this feeling that it was going to be okay, and it was."

Carmichael had a strategy going into the main. "I knew that I had to bowl my turns really good, and I knew I couldn't slide the back end out," he said. "I knew if I did that, that he [Reed] would inch up on me. I don't know what he was doing in the turns, and I knew riding high on the turns wasn't going to cut it tonight. I just stayed really, really low and tried to be really, really patient, and he'd inch up on me here and there, and then I'd pull out, and when I'd get a good, solid run through the hoops, I'd pull out, but I'd say it was 60/40—60 on the bad side, and 40 on the good side. Actually, about the halfway mark, I started running the cushion out here on this back section all the way around, and as soon as I did that, it was easy after that—it just started working."

This is Carmichael's last AMA Supercross chase. Probably. "I had made this decision before the season even started. I wanted to say it earlier, but the timing wasn't right," Carmichael said. "I didn't want to give these guys any more motivation. I think they kind of knew anyways, but I just said, 'This is the last one. I ain't leaving nothing on the table.' And none of us did. We all rode strong all year. There's nothing to be ashamed about. Luckily, myself and James were the benefactors with the shit that happened to us. But it just kind of makes you want to come back again and maybe do the whole series or something—I don't know. I have that option. If the first couple races go good next year, we'll see what happens."

Now, Carmichael heads off to the outdoors, where he has never lost a championship. "I'm super-pumped," Carmichael said. "I'm going to see Ernie on Monday. He called me as soon as I got into Vegas, and I'm like, 'Wow, Ernesto's calling me!' He was talking to me, and it was so great to hear his voice. Between him and James, seeing them as little kids growing up, I made a promise to go see him, and I'm going to do that and then start some outdoors next week. I've got to give it up to my teammate Ivan—he's been doing a lot of the testing for me, so I've got to thank him for that. When I did the perfect season on the Honda, I was like, 'Man, there's no way I'll be able to do that again.' Then last year, I came up a couple races shy, but James is going to be great, and Chad of course. I don't even know if he's going to be racing outdoors—he said maybe he wasn't going to. But it's going to be good. Supercross has always been really hard for me, so I take a lot of pride in working for it and trying to make it happen. I'm a little bit more comfortable going into the outdoors. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a good fight. It's nice to go into a fight knowing it's a little easier, physically, on you. I'm excited. I'm pumped that James is on a 450 this year because it was definitely cheating for sure when he was on a 250 and the rest of us were on 450s."

Chad Reed was flying in Vegas, as he set the second-fastest time in the main event, behind Stewart. "I think my bike was awesome these last two weekends," Reed said. "We made some huge improvements for supercross, and I was just kind of really pumped for that. I'm obviously disappointed not to win the title, but you've got to take the good with the bad, and I'm just totally stoked with the guys working on my bike these last two weeks and getting it working. I felt that I could ride as hard as I could out there." Chad didn't jump the first triple on the first lap. "I got a decent start, and then I was on the outside a little bit, and I tried getting down the lane, and then back down the next one so I could do the triple, and he [Ivan Tedesco] was just jacking with me—pushing me all the way to the outside," Reed said. "And I just ran out of racetrack and couldn't do the triple, so it was kind of a bummer, but I let those guys get going in the beginning of the race, and that's part of racing."

He was definitely thinking about the championship during the race. "Believe me, it's in your mind," Reed said. "The guy you need to beat's right there in front of you, and I would inch up on him, and I felt I would get closer to him and just get excited and make a little mistake, so you learn from your mistakes, but I felt I rode a solid race—all three of us did, I think. I think we all rode real solid and left nothing on the table, so it was fun. I think this race this weekend was probably one of the best I rode all year. I think I was really comfortable on the bike, and that helps, and I was good in the whoops again. There's not much else I can really complain about. I've come a long way, and there were parts of the season where I was winning but I didn't feel that I was at my best when I was winning—I was just kind of in the right place at the right time. So, no excuses, I was the third-place guy."

He kept trying to chase Carmichael down to the finish. "I never gave up. I knew that the mistakes were going to be costly, and he rode solid," Reed said. "I've got to take my hat off to him. He didn't make any mistakes. He just rode a great race. I would inch up on him, and like I said, I felt that I got too anxious and tried to make something happen and made little mistakes."

During the press conference, Steve Bauer of Wonder Warthog Racing introduced himself as Steve Bauer from the Riverside Press (although the newspaper is now called the Press Enterprise), and then asked Chad Reed if his knocking a Tuff Block off of the top of a berm was a "sign of frustration." "Yeah, I was kicking them," Reed said, sarcastically. "I think what you're talking about is I got the back wheel over the berm or something like that. I hit a couple of bales. I got a little frustrated on the quad here, and it kind of threw me up onto the bale and I just caught my foot on it."

With the slickness of the track, it was easy to overcook it, yet the top three kept a very high pace. "It was really slick," Reed said. "It was dry, and kind of just normal Vegas. It was me just pushing a little too hard and getting a little too anxious there."

Kevin Windham let Reed by early in the race. "I think Kevin pretty much knew that we were coming and there was a title on the line, and I think Kevin was good, actually," Reed said. "I just came up on him and he let me right by, so I was happy with that. I just kind of said thanks. All three of us, it just came down to us for who could get second to James for the AMA title, and he was just a good sport getting out of the way."

Andrew Short had a tough week after losing the Western title at the final round in Seattle. "Monday, I was not motivated," Short said. "Tuesday, I got a little more in me, and then the wife started kicking my butt and said I had to get off the couch, and I was trying to tell her I was resting and trying to save my legs for this weekend, but I have a great program and a great bike. After last weekend, I didn't even really care about tonight. I'm looking forward to the next championship, which is the outdoors. I want to do good there, and I want to try to win that championship. It really motivated me coming that close, and riding horrible like I did, so I'm looking forward to that championship."

This was his second Shootout victory. "The first time I won it, I didn't expect it," Short said. "Bubba went down, and Sorby went down in the whoops, and I was just in the right place at the right time. I didn't put a lot of pressure on myself because it was the last race and it didn't really mean anything. Last year, I was kind of burnt out, and this year, I came in with that same attitude. I was looking forward to outdoors, and I didn't hardly ride supercross. I was relaxed, didn't have any pressure, and I did horrible in my heat race, so I had nowhere to go but up. So I think it's hard for me to deal with pressure. I've learned a lot with the championship last weekend. I've matured a lot, and I can deal with it. Now I get into a pressure situation, and I will really excel."

His ankle that he injured earlier in the year is doing better, although he still has a bit of a limp. "It's one of those things that all riders have to deal with," Short said. "At one time or another, everyone gets injured and has to push through, and I pushed through. Fortunately, it didn't work out for the championship, but I learned a lot. I'm healthy for the outdoors, and I had a good season last year. I kind of got a second because Alessi [his penalty], but even third was a big step for me. I was never a threat for the outdoors until last year, and I can take what I learned last year and get up on the box and be a threat. I think I have a good chance at that championship."

Mike Alessi scored his best finish of the season. "I got a great start. I changed my tire between the heat race and main event," Alessi said. "It was kind of a risky move. We went from a hardpack tire to, believe it or not, a mud and sand tire. We just took a guess and went with it. I got a great jump, and Andrew moved over on me—it's okay, though. I'll forgive him. I just snuck up the inside, and those guys rolled the first double, and I doubled it, and I was like, 'Whoa, that was easy.' I went right into the lead, and I lead two or three laps and felt pretty good."

He feels like the season was a success. "The goal was honestly to finish third, but along the way, you learn lessons, and in supercross, you learn lots of things on your way up," Alessi said. "I learned a lot this year and I experienced a lot of good, and a lot of bad. There were a few ups and downs. The biggest thing I learned this year is to be patient, honestly, and be calm, and let the race come to me. I know I can get starts—it's my specialty—so next year, holeshots, be patient, hit the whoops better, and I think next year I can have my bike working better. My KTM was working great all year, and I want to thank David Vuillemin this weekend the most for helping me in the track walk with all of his experience in telling me what to do this weekend to get my best finish. I did it for my team manager Larry Brooks. This is his last weekend, and it's sad to see him go. It really is. He taught me so much along the way on my road to being great, and I want to thank Larry Brooks. Honestly, I haven't told anybody this, but Larry called us all in to the KTM factory in Corona on Tuesday afternoon at 11 o'clock, and he sat us all down, and he started telling us all that he was leaving, and I started crying right there. Nobody else felt the way that I felt that he was leaving, because it really hurt me, and it broke my heart that he was leaving because he's such a great person. He taught me lots of things about riding consistent, and the biggest thing that he taught me was between the first moto and the second moto at Hangtown, and I think that it was because of him that I would've won the second moto at Hangtown. He told me to take different lines, do this, do that, and he's just an all-around great guy, and I told him before the night that I was doing it for him, and he was happy. After the race, he just gave me the biggest hug and said, 'Thank you for everything you've done for me,' and I told him, 'Thank you for being the greatest team manager that I know.' It's sad to see him go. I did it for him, and I cried to see him go."

Alessi picked up the level of aggression in Vegas, as he obviously felt more comfortable in Supercross. "Honestly, in the beginning of the season, I did not feel comfortable," Alessi said. "I was scared, and I wasn't sure about my bike in the whoops. As you saw at Anaheim I, I wasn't consistent in the whoops, and at Phoenix I wasn't consistent in the whoops, and at Anaheim III, I wasn't consistent in the whoops. And we changed the suspension settings from the 49s to the 52s, and it made a huge difference. I was able to skim the whoops. I had no problems. I did learn about not letting guys by, especially at Dallas letting Grant by. But definitely next year I will not be doing that, and next year I'll have a bike with the settings that it needs to have."

David Vuillemin was in Alessi's pits all weekend. "After the meeting was over at KTM, Larry brought me into his office, and we started talking, and I was really emotional that he was leaving, and I tried to talk to him like an adult," Alessi said. "I asked him straight up, 'Who's the new team manager?' He said he didn't know. The first name that popped into my head was David Vuillemin. He's an awesome rider, he's one of the few guys that can ever say that he beat McGrath straight up and Carmichael straight up, so that was the first thing that popped into my head. So me and my dad decided to hire him this weekend and see how it would go, and it turned out to be a great idea. David taught me a lot this weekend. We did the track walk together, and he came by the moment I stepped through the door at the KTM truck, he was right there telling me I need to do this, and I need to do that. Second practice came out, I rode flawless, and I did every single lap and never stopped, and I was just flowing. I had a good pace going, and I had the fourth-fastest time, which was really good for me, and I knew I was in the hunt for the win, so a big thanks to David. It's still undecided if he will be the team manager or not for Hangtown, but in my opinion, I would love for him to be. But we'll see. But David's got his own thing. If he doesn't get the job for team manager, he will be racing in the 450 class for, I think, Motoworld. I would love for him to be the team manager, and realistically, he knows on the team that I'm the guy for the title outdoors, and he wants to work with me and he wants to win the title together. It would be great for him to be the team manager, but like Kurt Nicoll said, it's still undecided. He's in the hat, so we'll see."

Alessi and Short raced closely early in the Lites main. "We were really close, actually," Alessi said. "He looked over at me, and he was actually so close that I could've touched his jersey. Nothing like a little close racing. But it was a fun race for me. Andrew is a great guy, and I look forward to racing him next year in the 125 class and congrats on your win, Andrew. I'll see you in two weeks."

Tommy Hahn scored his second podium in a row in Vegas. "To tell you the truth, I rode two days of supercross this week," Hahn said. "It was a little different from riding outdoors, but I think it improved my corner speed a little bit, and I've just been putting my head down for outdoors. I want to do really good, so that's what I've been doing. Just to go out there and get on the podium is really good for me, and that was my goal this weekend. I didn't really ride that great in practice, and I'm just really pumped to get out of here without going down."

Hahn has been working on his starts with his little brother, Wil. "Yeah, I've got to hand that one to my little brother, he's actually the starter in my family," Tommy said. "We worked on starts a lot this week—me and my little brother—so I guess it helped. I almost jumped the gate in the heat race, I timed it so good, so it was good to get a good start in the heat race. I needed that."