Scenes from the house that McGrath built.

Well some of the biggest news out of A-3 wasn’t what happened on the track but rather what didn’t happen. Broc Hepler was a no show on the start line after his string of bad luck continued with Broc sustaining a broken thumb in practice. Ivan Tedesco has apparently not shaken off his bad juju with the new team as he suffered a broken hand that takes him out for the near future. Completing the weekend’s no luck trifecta was Grant Langston who is fighting some kind of an issue with blurred vision that sidelined him as well. These are three guys who have had some great rides over the years but just can’t seem to shake the specter of bad luck; all I can say is there must be an army of black cats and broken mirrors following this crew around.

So what about some of the things that did happen on the Anaheim dirt?
Well in heat one of the Lites going into the final turn Torco Race Fuels pilot Dan Reardon got a lesson in why you don’t leave the door open with Jason Lawrence on your back tire. Boost Mobile’s J-Law gave Reardon a chance to sample the soil and then the Aussie rider pulled a desperation move not seen since the days of Ryno when he tried to push his bike over the finish jump in this case however the effort was unsuccessful. The first season in the AMA series for Reardon has been a brutal education as he has had to take to the long road to the main event a few times after getting caught up in some unfortunate tangles during heat racing action. At the final Anaheim it came down to the last couple turns in the LCQ as Arenacross veteran Jeff Northrup gamely held onto the final transfer but finally gave it up allowing Reardon to squeak into the main.
Red Bull Honda’s Davi Millsaps continued his strange attraction to the tuff blocks although this time it was in his heat race and didn’t cost him nearly as much as his close encounters with those track markers in the past.
Working class hero Joe Oehlhof has been getting himself to the races on a shoestring budget after team issues right before the start of the season. The fine folks at Wonder Warthog racing have been helping Joe get to the gate thus far but things went horribly bad for Oehlhof in the LCQ when his bike grenades in the air over a big triple sending him down hard. Joe was able to get back up and walk the crash off but the real disaster for him might be with his ride, being a full-on privateer with just one bike to run this might spell the end of his season.

The man in control of the points thus far Ryan Dungey seems to have lost some of his momentum and Lawrence has picked it up as the gate drop for the Lites main saw Makita Suzuki’s golden boy on the ground while Lawrence ran away for the lead. Austin Stroupe grabbed the holeshot and kept a strangle hold on the second spot for the duration. Pro Circuits Brett Metcalfe battled with Kyle Cunningham and Billy Laninovich on his way to the final podium spot while the other two rounded out the top five. The wheels came completely off for Dungey on lap 6 when Wil Hahn crashed hard and Dungey slammed into his bike, Hahn came away with the worst of it with a possible wrist injury while Ryan took a tweaked bike around the track to try and salvage some points. With Dungey only able to struggle back up into thirteenth the points race has been turned on it’s ear as Lawrence is now up to within eight points of the leader and Metcalfe’s right on Dan Reardon with two points separating the battle for third overall.

The Supercross class main started out with the usual suspects out front as Reed put his San Manuel Yamaha to the holeshot line first with Windham and Millsaps right behind him. K-Dub wasted no time in putting the pressure on Reed in the early laps but was not able to make it stick and had Millsaps pushing hard behind him. As they crossed the mid-point in the race Davi was finally able to get around Kevin but the battle between to the Honda riders allowed Chad to run out the gap at the front of the pack. Monster Kawasaki’s Tim Ferry just keeps on plugging away and put himself around Windham as well to lock down the third spot. Davi Millsaps has really stepped up his game and it looked as though the nearly identical lap times for the two might have allowed him to challenge Reed for the win but Chad was able to use his considerable experience picking through the lapped traffic to hold the top spot on the box. Tim Ferry was fired up on the final lap as he made a run at Millsaps for the second spot but Paul Carpenter got in between them forcing Ferry to back it off. Red Dog was pretty fired up and got in Carpenters face after the checkers to let him know exactly how he felt about it.

For the overall points picture things are looking rosy for Chad Reed as he has now opened up a 26 point gap over second place Windham as Ferry proved that fighting for every point is the way to go taking over the third spot for the season tally.