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.
Said Tedesco: “I felt really good for the first half of the race then I started
riding really tight and making mistakes. But that’s the only way to learn to
win - 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.”
Said a disappointed Carmichael: “It’s a shame that things turned out this way
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.”
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.
“It’s a long season and we still have a lot of races to go,” said an upbeat
Carmichael. “We’ve just started the East Coast rounds and nothing has been
decided yet.”
250 Main Event: 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).
