With the Supercross championship over and decided, (congratulations to AMSOIL rider Trey Canard for his East Coast Lites championship), the GEICO Powersports/AMSOIL team began its chase for top honors in the AMA/Toyota Motocross Nationals at Glen Helen Raceway on Memorial Day Weekend.
With Kevin Windham sitting out the majority of the Nationals, the team is concentrating on the Lites class over the summer. However, they were without star rider Josh Grant, who suffered a concussion in practice at the series-finale Las Vegas Supercross. He'll be back soon, but Canard, Jake Weimer and Dan Reardon were all looking for first round success in San Bernardino, Calif.
Weimer was the team's top rider on Sunday. He went 7-7 in the day's two motos for sixth overall.
"It was all right," Weimer said. "I was there, and I got two decent starts, and I didn't make any major mistakes. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. I see a lot of areas where I can make improvements that should make a pretty big difference this summer.
Canard was the fastest rider on the team in practice, but after a decent start in the first moto, he was taken out and had to start the race from nearly dead last.
"I think I was ahead of two guys, so I don't think it was the worst start I could've gotten," Canard said. "I was pretty upset, because I had a decent start going, and it was just kind of a bummer to get cleaned out the way I was. I just had to forget about it and try and stay calm and make the best out of it. I put my head down and went for it. I've had some really awesome races this season, and I've had a couple of bad ones, so if they all went really well, I'd be wondering what was up."
He recovered from his extremely poor start to grab 14th in the first moto, which won him the new Ricky Carmichael Hard Charger Award. The new award goes to the rider who passed the most riders in any single moto on the day. According to the official tally, Canard passed 22 riders in the first moto. For moto two, Canard ran fifth for much of the race, then finished sixth and was credited with an eighth overall.
For former Aussie Supercorss and MX champ Reardon, it was his first-ever AMA National MX event, and he finished a strong 11th in the first moto, but had some bike-setup issues in the second moto and struggled a bit on his way to 23rd.
Now that the first-race jitters are gone, the AMSOIL sponsored team heads to Hangtown this coming Sunday near Sacramento, Calif. for round two of the AMA Outdoor Nationals. AMSOIL is the Exclusive Official Oil of the AMA Outdoor Nationals, which air nationally on SPEED.
Until then, we'll see you at the races.
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