Saturday night, the second and final night of racing for the 2006 US Open Supercross, promised to be an exciting evening. Stewart and Carmichael had shown themselves the night before to have speed no other rider could match. Saturday would be the night to determine the overall winner - a win would give the weekend to either Stewart or Carmichael. Stewart had even more on the line. Fifty thousand dollars more that was available to him, but no one else. He was set to `double down' on the event's unique trifecta payout.
The trifecta at the US Open consists of the `Superpole' fast-lap contest that would start each night with a winner-take-all payout off $10,000, a $5000 main event holeshot award, and a $35,000 main event win bonus. Any rider to snag all three in the night would gross the $50,000. Any rider to sweep all three events both nights in a row would `double down' and be awarded an additional $50,000 above the individual cash awards. This 1-1 on the weekend would also get that rider the $100,000 prize for winning the US Open overall. James was half way to having a $250,000 weekend. But he would not be able to rely on another first corner mistake by Carmichael, so the money was far from in the bank.
On Friday night the racers had to deal with a `rain section,' as the portion of the course that snakes outside the arena was drenched by a shower that began in the beginning of the evening. The skies on Saturday were sunny and clear, but the dark gray clouds began to roll in a few hours before race time. The weather held, however, and the outside section of the track remained dry all night.
The MGM Grand Garden Arena got the Saturday night racing started with the Superpole contest. The top ten supercross (450cc) riders took to the track, one at a time, to try to set the fasted time. Windham, the eighth to ride, won the event, but Vuillemin was the hero as he goon-rode his entire lap. He sat forward in the air and hit the rev limiter, shorted the rhythm sections, and spazzed his way around the corners with an erratic throttle hand. He gave up the chance at the ten thousand, but he got the biggest cheers.
The lites qualifying started with Josh Grant grabbing the holeshot and slowly pulling away from Jason Brayton and Steve Boniface. The order stayed without much excitement until the end when Grant took the checkered with a heel clicker over the finish line jump. The riders transferring to the main were Grant, Boniface, Brayton, Kelly Smith, and Marvin Musquin.
The second lites heat started well for Chris Gosselaar, and poorly for Sean Collier, who went down in the first turn. Gosselaar's lead didn't last long as Jake Weimer, who was riding great, got past him. Gosselaar had trouble on the outside section on the same lap and he went down. Weimer held the lead until the end with Gosselaar's teammate Ben Townley closing slowly but never getting close enough to challenge him. The final five were Weimer, Townley, Matthew Lemoine, Troy Adams, and Chris Gosselaar recovering for a fifth and a direct transfer into the main.