Well it’s that time of year again. The Australian Super X series starts this weekend with the opening round in Melbourne. The series is lacking the usual promise of top US riders taking on some of the best in Australia. No mention of the main draw card of the previous series with Chad Reed nowhere to be seen.

Broken Promises

I’ve been to the Brisbane rounds each year for the last three and been disappointed because the first year the head to head battle between James Stewart and Chad Reed never happened. The second year saw an influx of US talent with Davy Milllsaps, Josh Grant and Jeremy McGrath. The third year the promised visit by Ryan Villipoto never eventuated. It was good to see Kevin Windham in the series last year but unfortunately he didn’t race in the Brisbane round.

The Venues

Some of the venues have moved away from the major city centers and there are no rounds outside of main land Australia. Not that I’d be traveling to New Zealand anyway but it seems the promise of a high profile supercross series in Australia is not going to be.

Television Coverage

There will be no live television coverage as the rounds will be aired on Speed TV a week after each event.

Outdated Conent

The web site at superx.com.au has information on it that was put up in 2009. In the Race formats section it refers to “In 2009″ and later in the same text block “this year”. I just clicked on a link to the TV coverage and its broken too…

Super Xweb site UR

So what’s there to look forward to this year?

Well there are still some talented riders based in Australia that will be lining up to race.

Daniel Reardon and Ryan Marmont – 450 KTM
Jay Marmont and Jake Moss – 450 Yamaha
Daniel MCoy and Cody Cooper – 450 Suzuki
Todd Waters, Cheyne Boyd, Craig Anderson and Cody Mackie – 450 Honda
Matt Moss – 250 KTM

When’s it all happen

Don’t blink cause you might miss it. The 2011 race schedule is over and done in just 5 weeks.
October 22nd – Melbourne, VIC
October 29th – Wollongong, NSW
November 5th – Campbelltown, NSW
November 12th – Maitland, NSW
November 19th – Ipswich, QLD

Round 1 – 16 October – Newcastle, NSW
Round 2 – 23 October – Melbourne, VIC
Round 3 – 30 October – Canberra, ACT
Round 4 – 13 November – Auckland, NZ
Round 5 – 20 November – Dunedin, NZ
Round 6 – 27 November – Sydney, NSW
Round 7 – 4 December – Brisbane, QLD

His slow healing wrist injury has so far prevented his return to racing the 2010 AMA Motocross Championship. However, James has been focused and determined to join the series just as soon as humanly possible. Currently James now has his head down in an attempt to get back up to racing speed in the coming few weeks.

James Stewart 2010

Stewart 23, won the 2009 AMA Supercross championship just ahead of Chad Reed with only four points separating them. Stewart also won the 2007 Supercross series while Chad took the title in 2003 and 2008.

“I have a lot of respect for Chad (Reed) and our rivalry only makes us race better and is great for the sport. This year was the toughest I ever had to fight to win a championship, which made the victory even sweeter.

“When the opportunity came up to race in Super X in Australia I didn’t think twice. I have never been or raced there before and I am really looking forward to taking on Chad (Reed) in his country. It will be a great race and we will both be going for it,” said Stewart.

Both Reed and Stewart push each other around a bit towards the end of the 09 Supercross series so they’ll both be out to win.

“It is a testament to the series that James (Stewart) will be competing in a race. He is riding at his best at the moment and had a great season in the USA. This will be my first chance to race against him in my bid to getting back the AMA Championship next year so we will both be giving it our all,” said Reed.

Jason Lawrence placed 5th at Anaheim and crashed out of both his heat race and the LCQ at round 2 in Phoenix whilst his nemesis Ryan Dungy finished 3rd in round one after crashing out of his heat but winning the LCQ. Dan Reardon has shown some promising form but crashed in the final in round 1 and could only manage 10th at Chase Field. Jake Weimer looks strong after finishing first in round 1 but crashing in the final in round 2, giving up the leasd to Dungy and finishing in 4th place. Trey Canard had a nasty fall in the lites final after looking promising at the start of race.

In the supercross class, Ryan Villipoto has made it look easy winning a couple of heat races but doesn’t seem to have the same luck with the start in the main events. Ivan Tedesco also is returning to form after some strong riding within the top ten. Josh Grant is on top of the points table after winning round 1 and placing 3rd in round 2.

The intense rivalry between James Stuart and Chad Reed will give us some of the best action packed racing that has been seen for quite some time. The two champions are very close at the moment as came to light in round 1 when Stuart slowed before the entry to a whoops section and Reed clipped his back wheel which sent them both catapulting to the ground. Stuart hit his head hard and took a moment to regain his senses and started to push his bike off to the side of the track only to cut straight across Kevin Windhams path who was then knocked to the ground along with Stuart again in the collision. Meanwhile Reed started off again and continued to salvage 3rd place, whilst Stuart couldn’t get his Yamaha YZ450F started and withdrew from the race.

Round two in Phoenix saw the holeshot go to Josh Grant, out to prove his previous win was no fluke. Close behind him was James Stewart with Chad Reed in 5th place during the first lap. Soon after Reed had made his way into 3rd place but couldn’t get past Grant for several laps. Then the chase was on with Reed staying around 1 second behind Stuart for the majority of the race.

Both riders lapped the field to around 8th place, and after some close racing Reed finished right behind James Stewart. It really could have gone to either of the two, even though the lead didn’t change hands between them as it did in round 1.

As long as the majority of riders stay injury free we will be in for a great season packed with close racing and bar to bar action. Reed, Stewart, Villipoto, Grant and Tedesco all look good. It’s great to see Mike Allessi return to riding aggressively again after his bad crash last year in the outdoor season and suffering another bad injury while practicing in the off season after he recovered from the first incident.

Despite the attitude showing for fans from the championship winner Chad Reed, the racing was excellent. Both the lites and open classes were giving it 100% out on the track. Some of the highlights were Matt Moss and Daniel Reardons excellent run in the 1 lap sprint, coming in just behind Reeds time. Unfortunately Matt came off during the first couple of laps in the final lites race, as he was forced to change his line mid way through the long whoops section.

Chad Reed & Jeremy did an exhibition lap bar to bar pulling of a can can over the triple jump in the center of the track. MC has a very smooth riding style and was amongst the top riders during the entire night. Chad Reed’s amazing speed though the whoops was a site to see. He even wheel standed through the entire section during the exhibition laps he put on.

The new format, effectively splitting a 20 lap main event turned out to be pretty good. When I was watching the lites final I lost track after Matt Moss went down. But the pro opens gave us four starts and much closer racing.

All in all it was a great night and Super X promises to be bigger and better next year. Lets hope some more US talent gets attracted to the series and the Australian riders will be able to take it to those “Big dogs”, as Jay Marmont  says, too.

Can’t wait to see Reed line up against Stewart and Villipoto as the US supercross series gets back underway in January 09.

Reed fell in the first heat but had a big enough gap back to his competition which gave him enough time to get back on the bike and stay in the lead. Jeremy McGrath seemed to be in control in his first heat and took the win convincingly showing a cool head and smooth riding.

With the first 8 riders knocked out of the competition the riders paired up again to challenge. Unfortunately for the CDR Rockstart Yamaha team of Jay Marmont and Cheyne Boyd the where matched up together which meant one of them had to go. It was Marmont which took the win in a close race.

Reed won hist heat which had him matched with Ryan Marmont in the semi finals. Marmont while lined up on the start line next to Reed said “We’ll see if we can take down the Big Dog”. Which he did after staying in front of Reed. Chad tried to sneak an inside line and suffered front end washout and maybe even a little of Jay Marmonts rear tyre and went down again.

The next two in the semi finals to line up was Jeremy McGrath against Daniel McCoy. McGrath had come up short on the triple again and managed to stall his bike in one of the corners. MC didn’t seem to be putting in too much effort as if he had given up in the slippery conditions. McGrath commented earlier when he came up short on the triple earlier that it had been a heavy blow.

So the battle for third ended up being between the King of Supercross Jeremy McGrath and the current AMA supercross champion Chad Reed. McGrath looked confident at the start but dropped back soon after. By this stage MC had given up on the triple and was no where near Reed after the first couple of turns. Just before the last couple of turns Reed got thrown of the side of the bike and tried to regain hist footing on the pegs but couldn’t and so landed badly and crashed after the jump. He again recovered quickly and continued on to take 3rd place by winning the final.

The battle for the win was again close bar to bar action between McCoy and Marmont. With Marmont riding to a convincing win in terrible conditions.

Jeremy McGrath, or MC as he is known, is one of the sports most successful competitors dominating the sport for almost a decade. MC will don the number #2 jersey one more time to challenge Reed at the Townsville (22 November) and Brisbane (29 November) events. The new man on man format will see these two do battle with no distractions, other riders or excuses.

The final two rounds in Queensland are in large open stadiums on full size supercross tracks and the world will be watching as the event will be telecast in the US, Europe and Asia. Although the focus will be on Reed and MC, it will be good to see if other contenders in the championship including Dan Reardon and Jay Marmont can step it up and take on the champions.

This will give some of the other riders a chance to beat Reed, who is leading the championship. You will be sure to see some exciting moments, unfortunately maybe even some crashes, as riders push themselves beyond their normal ability. With only a 2 minute break between races this format will test the fitness of the riders and their ability to recover quickly from some hard racing.

In the lites class, the series leader Jake Moss has been ruled out for the season after suffering from an injury earlier this week. This puts several of the lites riders in contention for the title with Matt Moss, Ryan Marmont & Luke George looking in strong form coming up to the event.

Gates will open at 3.00pm on Saturday 8 November with tickets still available for purchase online at www.superx.com.au. Qualifying starts at 3.55pm and heats will commence at 5.55pm followed by the finals starting at 8.15pm.

Both riders will campaign 2009 YZ450Fs in next year’s AMA Supercross series as well as other events including the 2009 X-Games and the Rockstar Energy Drink U.S. Open. It hasn’t been officially announced yet whether or not the team will be campaigning the 2009 AMA Outdoor season.

“I’m really excited,” Stewart said. “It’s time for a change. When I got the opportunity to come on board with San Manual and Yamaha I had to take it. I know the bikes are really good and I’m excited to ride them on Saturday. We plan on doing the X-Games this year. We’re going to do some events in which we can build publicity. It’ll be fun, something different.”

“I rode it a bit this week,” said Chisholm. “I got a jump start on James and the bike is unreal. I’m a bit nervous switching up bikes. I’ve been with Kawasaki since I was like nine or ten. The bike is easy to ride so it’s going to be a good year.”