More From Anaheim Two

Dj vu. That about sums it up. Just two weeks ago, we were at Anaheim Stadium in southern California to watch the launch of the 2006 AMP'D Mobile/AMA Supercross Series. Many of the same fans were in attendance, but the track had changed significantly. The first round was widely criticized for having a track that was too difficult, and that spread out the riders too much, too quickly. Anaheim II was the opposite. It was an extremely fast, mostly easy track (by recent-race standards). Laptimes dropped from about a minute at round one to about 45 seconds at round two. But, once again, on the easier track, the racing was much improved.

Ricky Carmichael had much to say about the easy vs. hard track controversy after winning his second race of the season. "As far as the tracks go, obviously I'm at a different stage in my career than these guys are, so I look at it a little bit different," RC said. "I think that better racing, more guys up front, is going to generate more TV time and it's going to better for these two guys—it's going to be better for everybody. The best guy's always going to win, no matter the track conditions or anything. I know the track was pretty easy tonight, but it wasn't easy to put 20 good laps in. I know I was making mistakes, and I know James was, so... The best guy's always going to win. Everybody's talking about NASCAR and this and that, and we need to be where they are. It's never going to happen when we've got one guy or two guys just going and blowing the field out and lapping up to fourth place. That's not fun. Are you going to go to a football game when you know one team's going to blow it out? Or do you want to go to one where they're going to battle it to the end? It's harder on us, but for the sport, and for these guys' pocketbooks, it's going to be better. If anyone thinks otherwise, I'd love to hear their scenario."

James Stewart was less enthusiastic. "The way the tracks have been, I really just don't want to talk about it," he said after the race.

Chad Reed talked about it some, though, as he talked about what it's like coming through the pack. "It sucks! I don't know," Reed said. "I just want to get up there. I want to make it a three-way battle. I felt really good on the bike this week and I just wanted to get up there and make things happen. We made some changes with the bike for the main and the bike was really good in the whoops—I felt I could be really strong there—and that was the only part of the track where you could make up time. But I felt confident with that, but I wasn't able to make it up there. It's a shame."

Nathan Ramsey agrees more with Carmichael on the issue. "For me, I see what they're trying to do—tighten the racing up, and also try to make it safe. I agree with both of those," Ramsey said. "But I agree, too, with what Ricky says, which is that the fastest guy usually always wins. It's not like you make an easy track and some guy wins that's never won before. It can make it tough if you get a bad start or have to come through the pack, but I think the track became technical because of the slickness and the sharpness of the whoops. There's always something that comes out—maybe a hole here and there. You've got to constantly think. The pace is getting to be pretty fast, and there's four or five of us that can run it, so it's never easy, even if everyone's doing the same thing."

The tracks all year have made it so that riding a four-stroke is almost a necessity if you want to compete—so much so, that not only did Jeremy McGrath relegate his CR250R to the back of the Honda Ridgeline near the Honda pits in favor of the CRF450R (one race after his holeshot-to-fourth-place finish in Phoenix), but so did David Vuillemin. "The speed wasn't really the problem, it was just the tracks," Vuillemin said. "The track is really slick, and also trying to start against 450s was tough. When you start like 18th, it's tough to get top-five. I'm not Stewart, I'm just DV. I was good in practice but couldn't do good in the races, so it's the last minute, but we want to get some track time on the 450 and just learn about it. We wanted to come at Anaheim III, but we rushed it, but I don't think it could be that much worse, but it could be better. So we took a chance to get some more experience and make it better the next time. I think I need a couple weeks just to get used to that bike and to race it, and it will be fine." And there's no chance of DV switching back when the series gets rutted and loamy back east. "No, if I made the switch, I'm just going to stick with it because it's going to be too much work and too much money spent to keep two bikes with lightweight stuff," DV said. "We have to buy pretty much everything, so you have to choose one or the other."

After racing both Canadian rounds on his CRF450R practice bike, Nick Wey got off to a good start Stateside with a top five in Phoenix at round two. "Pro Circuit helped us a lot with the engine, and RG3 with the suspension, and I had a lot of time at the track to get used to it," Nyk said. "The Honda 450 in general is just an awesome bike, so we just improved the areas to suit the tracks and things like that, so I feel really comfortable on the bike and I think that's the most important part." Unlike many of his competitors, Nick doesn't run the stepped seat. "I'm not really into it too much in supercross because I'm kind of moving around a lot on the seat for seat-bouncing and things like that, so I run it stock for now, but outdoors I'll use that stepped seat for sure."

Jeff Dement ran the first two races on a Maestro RM-Z250, but for Anaheim II, he switched to the RM-Z450, which he rode to a top-10 in the 250cc Nationals last season. "Well, as you know, last year I raced the 250 nationals on the 450, and that was a last-minute decision, but it worked out pretty good," said the native Texan. "Unfortunately, I missed two events with injuries, but I made it back to finish in the top 10 in the championship. So our main focus coming back into this year is to back up that top-10 in the outdoor Nationals. Supercross is new in a sense to me—I mean, I had a few podiums in the 125 East before I went to Europe. I was always top-10 in the championship and stuff, but supercross is different now. It's much more business-like. And it's almost like I'm a rookie in supercross at 30 years old—a new riding style and all. But outdoors is where my talent lies, so we felt that we're two rounds into it, and I was the top Suzuki in the West, but we felt it would be better for me to be on the 450 indoors so that when we head outdoors, I'll be on the same bike. Another thing is if you have an outside-industry sponsor, like we do, and they turn the TV on and they see the 250 class, they're going to see you somewhere along the line and be able to tell their buddies, `There's our guy right there.' It all factored in, but there are way more positives than negatives to riding the 450."

We talked to rookie phenom Ryan Villopoto before the race. Villopoto was forced to race the LCQ two weeks in a row, but then also got the holeshot in the main event both times. "It's been pretty good," RV said. "I didn't expect second at the first one, but it worked out for me I guess. Hopefully, I can just get a good start in the heat race, and still holeshot in the main."

Villopoto has a new teammate at the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team in Chris Gosselaar. Goose is slated as a fill-in rider for now. "Actually, Troy Adams ended up getting hurt, and I was in Bercy when it happened, and I heard Mitch needed a replacement rider, so when I came home from Bercy, I didn't have a deal or anything, so I gave Mitch a call, and I couldn't get a hold of him," Gosselaar said. "So I drove down to the shop to talk with him, and he told me he was going to think about it, and he called me a week later and told me I got the deal, so it all came together. It worked out for the best. It's done a lot for me. Compared to where I was last year, not being happy with my bike or my team or anything, to this... Pro Circuit does everything right. Everything is 100 percent. They don't cut corners anywhere. I know I have the best bike out there, and there's no reason why I shouldn't be on the box every weekend." After running as high as fifth in the main event, Villopoto fell with only two laps to go and finished 12th.

Pro Circuit engines are notoriously strong. Motosport.com/MDK/MSR Honda's Paul Carpenter is used to the PC powerplants, having ridden the last two seasons with them. But after scoring a sixth and a seventh in the first two rounds, it's apparent that his return to Hondas is doing Carpenter right. "We came in knowing that I could do decent, and not expecting to do too much, and I've just been trying to put my bike out front," Carpenter said. "We had realistic goals coming in—anywhere from two through eight, and so far I've been meeting them. Personally, I'd like to do a lot better, but every rider would, so I'm just taking what I can get each weekend and trying to go forward. I've been the most comfortable in my whole career on a Honda. It's where I feel at home. From the first time I got on the bike, I was really pumped, and the whole team came together really well. I'm in a good place, and hopefully I can get some results to back up that statement." Carpenter had an off-night at Anaheim II, finishing 14th.

The 2005 AMA Motocross Rookie of the Year, Juss Laansoo, made both his Unbound Energy/MotoXXX Honda debut and his supercross debut at Anaheim II, having recently recovered from a broken right collarbone. "It's healed up pretty good, I think," Laansoo said. "I think I crashed twice, and both times on the same shoulder, and it's still strong." He headed out onto the Anaheim track with only 9 days SX practice. "Yeah, I've had I think 9 days on a supercross track, with 2 of those testing," Juice said. "So we have lots of testing to do. The tracks, the start, it's so much different that I don't know what to expect from the bike, and I don't know what I want. Outdoors, I know I want stiffer, slower suspension, and stuff, but supercross is new for me, so I have to learn." But he says he has a very basic goal for SX this year. "My goal is to stay healthy for the outdoors and learn as much as I can in supercross," he said. "Then next year, I want to have a full-season goal. I've been nine times on a supercross track in my life. It's difficult, you know?"

Darcy Lange finished fifth and eighth in the two opening rounds of the series, and sat sixth in points coming into Anaheim II, but he went down hard in practice and hit his head, and was reportedly unconscious in the middle of the track for an uncomfortable amount of time. He sat out Anaheim II, and may miss San Francisco and Anaheim III as well.

Team Yamaha's team manager Jim Perry says Heath Voss is day by day right now, but he should be back by San Francisco—although they aren't 100% sure about that just yet.

But after a long, hard fight, Ricky Carmichael came away as the first two-time winner in either class in the 2006 AMP'D Mobile/AMA Supercross Series. "You know what I'm more excited about? I'm more excited about how fun the race was, and how good it was, that's what we need right there," RC said. "It would've been better if Chad was up there, and if all three of us could've battled—that's what we need. And that was a CBS TV show, so that was a step in the right direction."

Carmichael would've been surprised had he gotten the white flag while still behind James Stewart. "I didn't know what lap it was," Carmichael said. "When he fell down, I came around and the white flag came out. I was like, `Holy smokes! I was waiting a little too long there.' But I felt that I was going to try to get him in the whoops down the right side there, but I would've been going through there on faith because I was going to have to go fast to get by him since he was riding so good."

Carmichael has always been sub-par in the whoops, but at Anaheim II, that's where he was making time on Stewart. "I think I've never been so good through there. I've been decent," Carmichael said. "I think the biggest thing for me is just keeping my cool. I always know that when they get like they were tonight, if I go in there too fast, I get out of shape. Unfortunately, it's been that way my whole career, and I've been bitching about it, but no matter how big they are or small they are, it isn't going to help me. I just have to deal with it. They bit me at the first race, and luckily I held onto it tonight."

Apparently, RC's RM-Z was giving him fits until now. "The biggest thing for me this weekend is we got a lot figured out with my bike," RC said. "We had some problems with our engine from Japan from day one, so we're just getting it a little better than where it was at the MGM, so it was nice to ride the track and not worry about something being wrong. That was nice. Like these guys said, it's a long series, and I've been down this road before. I just want to put my head down and try to win races. The lappers were all over the place. They almost took out James—it was gnarly. But fortunately, he stayed on two wheels. A couple times, he had to cut inside really quick in a corner, and I was kind of anticipating it, so we didn't run into each other. It seemed that I could lose a little ground and then catch back up, so I could kind of take my time a little bit."

RC always seems to be able to find the next level. "He's really fast," RC said of Stewart. "For me, it's fun because I can learn. I think a lot of people have always learned off of me, so it's fun. I learned off of Jeremy, I learned off of Chad and him, and it's fun. Fitness and all that, that's fine. For me, it's speed and bike setup, and just trying to find every little tenth of momentum. It's dissecting, reading tapes—a lot more goes into it than it did 5 years ago, that's for sure."

Chad Reed could see Stewart and Carmichael once he got into third, but he could never quite reel them in. "I could see them when we crossed the start straights," Reed said. "They were on one side, and I was on the other. Like I said, a couple laps I would catch them a little, and a couple laps I would pull it back out, just depending on what would happen on the lap. I was kind of banking on them getting into a race and slowing themselves down a little bit, but they actually kept pace pretty good. All the way to the finish line, I charged. This weekend, I probably felt the best that I've felt all year long, so that's a good thing. I feel strong, and I was able to put some good laps together, so that's the main thing, is to keep booking. You never know what's going to happen. We're going really fast, and mistakes turn into big ones and cost a lot."

The lappers were a bit harder on Reed than one would expect. "The lappers were tough mainly because there was such a gap between second and third, and they never really knew if it was me or the guy that they were battling with," Reed said. "We'd come up on them so fast, and they were actually going fast too—when the track's as fast as what it was—so there wasn't a whole lot separating us. We had to kind of make things happen more this weekend."

Stewart led 14 of the 20 laps, but had to settle for third after falling trying to avoid a downed Mike Brown. He had an idea where RC would try and pass him. "I knew it would be one section on the track, and I think it was right after the finish-line jump, because I kept struggling through there," Stewart said. "I thought if there was any place he was going to try to get me, it was going to be there, so I already had it planned out. I was going to go down the inside and block him."

Surprisingly, Stewart struggled through the whoops in the main event, in contrast to races past. "I think it was just my line selection," Stewart said. "I was hitting them in the heat races and it was working good for me, and then of course the track got a little bit worse toward the end of the race. But the only thing we can do is go back and do my normal program. I felt like it was a good weekend. I felt strong, and it's the third race into it. I've just got to keep it in control."

Stewart says he was confident that RC wouldn't clean him out for the win. "It was difficult, but I know Ricky's always been a clean rider, and I knew even if I went to the outside coming in, I knew he wasn't going to come in and try to hit me," Stewart said. "So I just had to pick a good line every single lap. Both sets of whoops were pretty tricky tonight. Right now, it's just my line selection through the whoops, and of course my fall—but there's nothing I can do about that."

Confidence "My confidence is the same as it was in Vancouver and Toronto—and even Anaheim. I felt like I've been giving these things away. Falling in the first corner last week didn't seem to help to get up there and race with these guys, and then falling when I'm out front... So I feel strong, and it's a long season, and I realize that, so my confidence is still there. There's no need to hit the panic button because it wasn't like he got around me and beat me by 10 seconds. I felt like I was up there, and we had a great race, so there's no need to hit the panic button. It's a long season, and I'll go back and do the same things this week."

When asked about his start, Stewart didn't seem concerned. "You know, I always kind of figure a good start is staying up, so I was up I think top seven or eight, and Chad and Ricky, they was behind me off the start—actually, Ricky was right in front of me," Stewart said. "The start wasn't a problem. I felt like I made improvements on my starts, and I'll keep making them. But we got out front, and then I fell, so the start wasn't a problem tonight."

Stewart looks forward to his future clashes with RC. "I felt good. I knew the way the track was, and the way Ricky was riding, he was going to be there for 20 laps, unless either one of us fell," Stewart said. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't planning on making those same mistakes, it's just my line selections—what I was picking. I had fun in the race, for the 17 or 18 laps I was up. I had a fun race. It's going to be like that from here on out. I feel like we're both on top of our game right now, and I'm looking forward to next week."

Grant Langston scored his first Lites win of the season at Anaheim II, but watching his speed up to this point, it's kind of surprising that he hasn't won until now. "Anaheim I was just a bad deal—wrong place, wrong time," Langston said. "But Phoenix was totally my fault. Stalling the bike, I can't blame anyone for that."

In Langston's career, it seems every title he has won (and lost) in America has come down to the last race. "I don't know if that's a benefit," Langston said. "I'm 23, and I'm going gray, so... I think these tight championships stress me out. My dad's about to have a heart attack as well. The way the series go, it always seems to be like that. Nathan has a lot of experience, and when I was growing up in South Africa and when I was in Europe, I used to watch supercrosses with him and those guys in championship battles before. And I think Andrew did good in outdoors and supercross last year and had the taste of victory, so I think we're all in the same boat. We're all on a good pace, and we've all experienced the joy of victory. I know Andrew hasn't won a championship yet, but I know everyone's been in that position where they were going for a title, at least."

Since Grant is living in America, is married to an American woman, and has an American daughter, why do we keep saying he's from South Africa? "That's how I look at it," Langston said. "I have my family over here. I have a kid who's going to call me Grant—but hopefully just call me dad. I wish you guys could just tell the, umm... What are they called? The people that try and deport you? [Nathan Ramsey says, "Immigration."] Yeah, I wish you guys would tell immigration. I'm still trying to get my green card. I can't even travel out of the country because if I leave now, I won't be allowed back in. I'm going to get my green card now, and that's kind of exciting, because honestly, having a South African passport, you may as well have a criminal record. Everywhere I go, it's a full cavity search, they drill me, they think I'm a terrorist... Every time me and my wife travel overseas, I go one way through security and she goes another way. I'm getting searched and stripped down to my undies, and I'm like, `I just want to get on the friggin' plane, c'mon!'"

Andrew Short sits tied with Langston for the championship points lead with five races left to run. "I think it's a great accomplishment. These guys are great riders, and Grant was going very fast today," Short said. "I'm still in the points chase, which is a great thing. There are a few more races, and I'm right where I want to be."

Short crashed before Phoenix and hurt his leg bad enough that he has a noticeable limp. "I've had a rough couple weeks," Short said. "I knew everyone was going to have their ups and downs, and I've just got to work through it. I didn't work this hard at home for nothing, so I'm going to give it my all. I don't know what's going to happen, I just have to put myself in a good position for the rest of the races."

Andrew was sporting a David Bailey Replica One Industries Trooper helmet at Anaheim II as well. "The One Industry guys got together with David Bailey, and 20 years ago they had that epic duel between him and RJ, so they made this to kind of honor that," Shorty said. "I'm happy to be a part of it. I'm pumped on the helmet. It's cool. It's old-school, and it's a cool thing they put together, so I was pretty pumped to be a part of it."

Langston was the third in three winners thus far this season in the 125cc class, with Short winning round one and Ramsey winning round two. "It's good for me with three different winners since I had the 12th-place finish in the first one, but I would like to see it as one winner for the rest of them, you know? I definitely would want to put my Red Bull KTM up front," Ramsey said about the prospects of having more first-time winners. "But there's a lot of competition, so you've got to be smart on the other hand and not go for the glory every time. You've got to pick your moments. And right now, the points are close enough to where we've got to think about that stuff. These guys are smart, too. They've got to think about that. I'm just going to go to each race and try to dissect the track and go as fast as I can on the track, and try to get a good start and stay out of the mess."