Detroit Supercross - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 5

Grant Dawson's weekly look at who crushed it, and who needs to kick it up a notch.

​250 Class

The Good: Joey Savatgy | 2nd Place

Detroit was just what the doctor ordered for Joey Savatgy. He put himself in a great position to win and almost got it done, but Jordon Smith was able to hold him off for the final lap and relegate Joey to second. But what Joey didn't know until after the race was that Zach Osborne had gone down in the first turn and had a bike problem, which led to an 18th-place finish. That, combined with Joey's second place finish, gives him a nine-point lead in the championship heading into St. Louis. Pretty crazy how fast things can change in our sport, eh? That's an 18-point swing in one race! If anything, that just proves that Joey cannot get comfortable or think that his lead can't disappear in one race, because it very well could. The race is on–and it's going to be an exciting last few rounds of the championship.

Joey Savatgy.Click photo to change size and caption

The Good Bonus: Jordon Smith | 1st Place

Hey, Jordon Smith got his first career Supercross win in Detroit! Nothing's better than your first win, and Jordon will cherish this past Saturday for the rest of his life. What's even better is that he had to transfer to the main event out of the LCQ. So he had a terrible gate pick, but he still made it happen on the start and rode a great race en route to the win. There's no doubt that it's been an impressive season for Jordon so far, but it just got a lot sweeter.

Jordon Smith.Click photo to change size and caption

The Bad: Alex Martin | DNS

This was an... interesting situation. Christian Craig came into the final corner of the track a little too hot during qualifying and absolutely punted Alex off the track. Unsurprisingly, he instantly got a lot of hate because of it and also got penalized and fined by the AMA. The good news is that he did apologize to Alex publicly before the night show. The bad news is that Alex was too banged up from the crash to race. So, did he mean to hit Alex (especially that hard)? Absolutely not. This wasn't a "I'm gonna punt this dude off the track" situation. I think he just came into the corner a little too hot and hit Alex. Maybe he thought he'd move out of the way or something, I'm really not sure about the how of it all, but I am pretty sure that he didn't mean to inflict the damage that he did. Christian is just not that kind of rider. Hopefully Alex is ready to move on and will be good to go for next week (Edit: Alex is out for St. Louis).

Alex Martin.Click photo to change size and caption

The Ugly: Zach Osborne | 18th Place

It was a disastrous weekend for Zach, and that may be an understatement. I mean, if there is a nightmare scenario that runs through every rider's mind before the gate drops, it's exactly what happened to Zach in Detroit. An incident that was almost entirely out of his control lost him a ton of points and the red plate. Now, he's not completely out of it, but he's going to have to win out, or hope that Savatgy struggles over the next few rounds. And even then he's going to have to avoid any slip-ups. Osborne went from a comfortable lead in the championship to being ten points down. Yeah, I'd be pissed too.

Zach Osborne.Click photo to change size and caption


450 Class:

The Good: Eli Tomac | 1st Place

Four wins in a row and seven wins out of the last nine races. Those are some numbers that none of us expected to be reading about Eli Tomac after the first three races of the year. Eli is a completely different rider right now, and he's on a completely different level from the entire field. I will admit that I was a bit concerned after his terrible heat race start, but he got a fantastic start in the main and just waited for an opportunity to pass Marvin Musquin for the lead. Once he made the pass, it was all over. He quickly built up a seven-second lead, and maintained it all the way to the checkered flag. Ryan Dungey got a bad start and could only work up to third place, again, and lost another five points. We're now staring at a small seven-point gap between Dungey and Tomac, and it's about to get really interesting. Can Eli continue his winning ways? Will Dungey finally stop the bleeding? We'll find out next weekend in St. Louis.

Eli TomacClick photo to change size and caption

The Bad: Jason Anderson | 7th Place

Anyone know what's up with Jason Anderson right now? No? I figured. It's no secret that this season has been anything but impressive for Jason, as he's struggled to get on the box and even inside the top-five at times. To me, it seems like a combination of a few things has led to this disappointing season. First off, Ryan Dungey, Eli Tomac, and Marvin Musquin are way above the rest of the field at the moment (and Eli is even higher than the other two). Jason's starts have also been consistently horrendous, and he hasn't been able to just slice through the field due to how deep it is. You add all of that together, and it's anything but a recipe for success–that's for sure. He's got five rounds to get something going before we head outside. Time to make it happen, Jason.

Jason Anderson.Click photo to change size and caption

The Ugly: Chad Reed | 22nd Place

Chad hasn't been making a whole lot of noise lately, but he has been putting in some solid results. This week didn't go so well, though, as he got a terrible start and ended up crashing out of the main event. Not a whole lot else to say about it. He looked alright throughout the day; he just made a mistake and paid the price for it. Onto next week for the Two-Two crew.

Chad Reed.Click photo to change size and caption


Words by Grant Dawson
Photos by Steve Giberson

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