Stewart Earns Fourth Win at Toronto Supercross

Yoshimura Suzuki’s James Stewart earned his fourth win of the season this weekend at the Toronto Supercross, giving him the most wins of any racer in the 450cc class so far in the 17-race series, but most importantly, the win vaults the two-time AMA Supercross Champion past Ricky Carmichael to second place on the all-time AMA Supercross Series winner’s list with 49 wins.

The win wasn’t easy for Stewart, however, as he needed a come-from-behind victory at the home of the Toronto Blue Jays to secure his fourth Supercross win of 2014. After sitting deep in the pack after the 22-rider field after the first turn, Stewart certainly had his work cut out for him. Red Bull KTM’s Ken Roczen earned the holeshot off the start and battled with Muscle Milk Honda’s Justin Barcia early one, while Joe Gibbs Racing Yamaha’s Justin Brayton sat in third.

Series points leader Monster Energy Kawasaki Ryan Villopoto sat in fourth early on, but the three-time and defending series champion was under the weather as an undisclosed illness had seen him taken to the hospital earlier in the day, which caused him to miss qualifying that forced him to start further back in the pack. Villopoto was unable to put forth a legitimate effort for the win and had to mitigate the damage to his healthy series points lead.

Stewart was working his way through the field by the end of lap two, battling up to sixth place by lap five. As Stewart was working his way up, Barcia had taken the lead away from Roczen, while Dungey had passed Brayton and into third place by lap seven. Stewart was cutting the fastest laps of any rider on the track, and he passed Brayton one lap later and made a charge for Dungey. Stewart needed five more laps to catch Dungey for third place, and by then the pair had begun to close in on Roczen.

Stewart then made a great pass on Dungey and set his sights on rookie Roczen. Stewart blitzed past Roczen through the whoops for second place with seven laps to go, giving him plenty of time to catch Barcia. Showing remarkable composure, Stewart change up his line through a whoop section and snatched the lead away from Barcia, who had no answer for him. Stewart then pulled away and rode the final five laps unchallenged to claim the win in Toronto.

“I passed so many people I don’t remember what I [start] I got, but the last time I did something like that it was Anaheim I,” Stewart said. “I was going next to Ken [Roczen] through the whoops, and I was like, ‘Please don’t swap out.’ I just have to give my team a lot of credit. We had an issue in the heat race, and we got my bike dialed-in, and we came out and got it done.”

Stewart’s win now gives him the second most of all time at 49, with only seven-time champion Jeremy McGrath having more at 72 wins.

“That race was tough,” Stewart continued. “There was a lot of energy out there. I’m so happy. To break Ricky’s record and do it like that—he’s such a legend and…Man, that says a lot.”

Barcia held on for second place, earning just his second podium of the season.

“It was a good performance, good heat race, good main event,” Barcia said. “It was a tough night of racing. James Stewart rode really good. You can’t take anything away from him. He just was a little bit faster all night. I’ve made a lot of changes lately in the way I’ve been racing. I feel good, and everyone around me has been helping a lot, keeping me strong. I’ve had a lot of bad results, so this feels good.”

After passing Roczen for third place, Dungey also did what he set out to do, beating Villopoto to the finish line to gain some ground back in the championship points chase after Villopoto gamely hung on for sixth place, behind Roczen and the steady-riding Brayton. Weston Peick, Dean Wilson, Josh Hill and Matt Goerke completed the top 10 finishers.

“I think we had it, just, you know, James was riding really good,” Dungey said. “We slowly came up on the guys in the front. Them starts are going to be key, but we’re just taking it one race at a time. We got a little gift tonight. I’m glad Villopoto is not out. I never really heard what happened, but we’ll take it and keep moving forward. There’s a lot of racing left. Winning also helps too.” 

Perhaps no one outside of the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team had expected the kind of dominance that squad has enjoyed, with Pro Circuit riders standing atop the box in each of the first five rounds of AMA Eastern Region 250cc Supercross competition, but GEICO Honda’s Justin Bogle finally put an end to it. Bogle earned a convincing win in the 15-lap 250cc main event in Toronto, taking the holeshot and leading every lap to score his first career 250cc Supercross win.

The Kawasaki team was concerned after its hot rookie Adam Cianciarulo suffered a shoulder injury in a crash earlier in the day. Cianciarulo rode bravely in the main in spite of his injury, running in second place early, but he was forced to stop at one point in the main event to have the Asterisl Mobile Medical team pop the shoulder back into place. He remounted his machine and tried to press onward, but he was forced to drop out of the race and was credited with last place. Even worse for the PC team, Daytona Supercross winner Blake Baggett also crashed out of the race while running in fourth place and was unable to continue because his throttle was ripped off in the crash.

Up front, Bogle simply cruised, finishing 3.02 seconds ahead of Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Martin Davalos, who finished second another 3.9 seconds ahead of surprise heat race winner Matt Lemoine on the JAB Motorsports/Silkolene Kawasaki.

“The start was everything,” Bogle said. “It has been everything every round, but I just put myself in a bad spot off those. But I finally got a holeshot, so that’s awesome. I need to cut my trophy in half and give half of it to my trainer. He has been the biggest part of not only my program but my life as well.

With five podium finishes in six Eastern Region rounds, Davalos’ consistency earned him the series points lead with just two rounds remaining.

“I’m very lucky I’m racing,” Davalos said. “I had a really bad crash in practice, and obviously last weekend was really tough for me. I feel like I rode great. I was putting the pressure on Justin, but he was riding very well. I made a mistake and I fell down, but I was able to recoup to second place. The track was tough tonight. It got really rutted and the whoops got really challenging for me. Like I said, I’m happy I came in second place, and I am ready to go racing again.”

Lemoine said that the difference for him tonight was “riding strong and believing I could do it tonight. Tonight is the first night that I felt so good during the week and came into the race, and I just knew I had it. I just had to put it all together. Finally! It’s about time. I got so many fourth places, and its sucks being down there and not up here [on the podium]. Now we’ve got some momentum going, and hopefully next weekend we can stay back up here and finish out the East Coast like this.”

The Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series heads back across the border to the United States next weekend for round 13 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Missouri.

Toronto Supercross Results (Round 12 of 17)

450cc Main
1. James Stewart - Suz
2. Justin Barcia - Hon
3. Ryan Dungey - KTM
4. Justin Brayton - Yam
5. Ken Roczen - KTM
6. Ryan Villopoto - Kaw
7. Weston Peick - Suz
8. Dean Wilson - Kaw
9. Josh Hill - Suz
10. Matt Goerke - KTM
11. Andrew Short - KTM
12. Nick Wey - Kaw
13. Jimmy Albertson - Hon
14. Wil Hahn - Hon
15. Cody Gilmore - Kaw
16. Nicholas Schmidt - Hon
17. Ronnie Stewart - Suz
18. Adam Enticknap - Hon
19. Mike Alessi - Suz
20. Preston Mull - Yam
21. Daniel Meynet - Kaw
22. Ivan Tedesco - KTM

Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series Points Standings (After 12 of 17 rounds)
1. Ryan Villopoto - 246/3 wins
2. Ryan Dungey - 221/1 win
3. James Stewart - 207/4 wins
4. Ken Roczen - 197/2 wins
5. Justin Brayton - 185
6. Justin Barcia - 156
7. Andrew Short - 153
8. Broc Tickle - 126
9. Wil Hahn - 122
10. Chad Reed - 111/2 wins

250cc Main
1. Justin Bogle - Hon
2. Martin Davalos - Kaw
3. Matt Lemoine - Kaw
4. Jeremy Martin - Yam
5. Cole Thompson - KTM
6. Vince Friese - Hon
7. Alex Martin - Yam
8. Kyle Cunningham - Hon
9. AJ Catanzaro - Hon
10. Jimmy Decotis - Hon
11. Jackson Richardson - Hon
12. Matt Bisceglia - Hon
13. Landen Powell - KTM
14. Levi Kilbarger - Hon
15. Jesse Wentland - Hon
16. Brad Nauditt - Hon
17. Taylor Potter - Hon
18. Gannon Audette - Kaw
19. Ryan Zimmer - Hon
20. Blake Baggett - Kaw
21. Kyle Peters - Hon
22. Adam Cianciarulo - Kaw

250SX East
1. Martin Davalos - 109/1 win
2. Justin Bogle - 97/1 win
3. Adam Cianciarulo - 95/3 wins
4. Blake Baggett - 80/1 win
5. Vince Friese - 76
6. Cole Thompson - 64
7. Kyle Cunningham - 58
8. Matt Lemoine - 57
9. Jimmy Decotis - 54