Houston Report from yorKool Media

I was able to see the track a little bit on Friday, and I already had a feeling that this track was going to play host to an eventful race. The Texas races (both Houston and Dallas) seem to bring controversy and heartbreak to the series every year. The track was pretty unique and the dirt was surprisingly good. I missed the free practices, but many riders were still struggling to figure out their lines in the timed qualifying sessions. Windham, on the other hand, was riding effortlessly. He was nailing the triple-triple-on-off before the start straight better than anyone and nailed a perfect quad over the section after the start straight. I only saw Stewart and Villopoto try that after K-dub, but they both had to wheel tap the third jump to clear the fourth. Stewart looked out of it all day. He was still fast, but not Stewart fast. There is something wrong with him, and I sincerely hope he figures it out. His brother, on the other hand, was looking great. Mookie was toward the top of the board several times and looked pretty comfortable. Baggett was very surprising. He is a mystery to me. When he goes fast, he goes really fast. He was launching the ski jump on to the start straight with more aggression than anyone, shredding the bowl turn before the finish line, and generally looking like an entirely different rider than we've been seeing. Barcia still looked to be the most confident rider out there. This is just an observation, but it seemed like the Geico Hondas had slightly more torque out of the turns than the other 250s. Those bikes looked great. All of the riders on them were all able to hit jumps right out of corners with greater ease than others. Roczen was not looking great. It took him a long time to make it into the top three in times. Some of the less high-profile riders that surprised me were Nico Izzi and A.J. Catanzaro. They were dominating their practice sessions and looked good. The section after the start was giving riders issues every time I looked over there. One rider got out of shape in those whoops and launched off of the berm after them, hitting the concrete wall. He hit hard enough to feel it in my seat. Pretty crazy. Almost immediately afterward, another rider went down in the whoops. Two more riders went over the bars in the jumps before those whoops. Dirt Wurx was quick to shave that berm down after the launch incident. Mike Horban was bitten by the Hart and Huntington curse when he crashed out for the night in his first race with official backing from the team. That team has had a rough go of it.

I went back to the pits after qualifying was over and spotted Matthes and Weigandt. I used some jokes from the Pulp show to get Steve's attention and started "bro-ing down" with he and Weege. They were way cooler than I anticipated and seemed like great guys. They weren't acting rushed and had time to talk to a random fan. I think it's really cool of them to talk to us regular joes when they have much better things to do. I would love to be up in the press box with those guys someday.

K-dub busted out two awesome transfers in opening ceremonies, most likely trying to make up for his transfer-less night in Toronto. Villopoto has the most boring of the intros, where he just rides out with his Monster hat on and waves to the crowd. I guess he knows he can't win against Windham, so he doesn't even give it a shot. Chisolm made his intro to some Matthes-requested Van Halen. The first Lites heat took off while I was waiting for the disgruntled concession stand lady to give me my food, but there was a red flag that made that unimportant. AX-champ Tyler Bowers went down on the start and Sean Hackley, Jr. went down in the first whoop section. Tyler got immediate attention while it took some time for Hackley to be helped. Bowers looked to be okay, but Sean was taken out on a backboard. Really hoping that he is okay. There was around a 30-minute delay after this, but Lurch handled it much better than he did at L.A. with the Canard and Morais incident. Speaking of announcing, Erv Braun made some horrendous mistakes. Once the heat finally took off, Barcia continued his winning ways. He looked great. Wharton had his heat locked up until he went over the bars in the rhythm section before the start. He got lucky and didn't catch the face of the jump. He was able to get up and still qualify, making a nice recovery. Bogle was the beneficiary of the action and took the heat win. Durham fell in the first turn and ended up going to the LCQ. Baggett rode well, but not like he was riding in practice. I can't figure that guy out. Villopoto had a pretty standard heat, taking the win by 12 seconds over Brayton. Heat two was a barnburner. Windham was giving Stewart more than he knew what to deal with. K-dub made up time every lap in the section after the start straight by wheelie-ing into the face of the second jump and carrying more speed into the whoops. James ran it in on the fan favorite in a bowl turn, and I think that fired the old man up. He was going for it and even pre-jumped over the ski jump on to the start straight using a tiny roller in the small sweeper before it. He closed right in on Stewart's rear fender and attempted to scrub the last triple hard. The front end dropped and K-dub's night was over. It took him a while to be helped up and into the Asterisk rig. Man, those Asterisk guys were a busy crew. The Lites LCQ wasn't too eventful. Durham quickly passed Lemoine for the lead and checked out. Mike Alessi found himself alone out front in the 450 LCQ with Gavin Faith and Wil Hahn battling for the last spot. Wilbur made a clean block pass to put his Factory Honda in the main.

The Lites main took off with Barcia and Roczen exchanging the lead a couple of times in the first lap. Barcia pulled a gap by nailing the rhythm section before the start straight. Wharton was making the best of his bad gate pick and made it up to fourth. Durham's bad night snowballed when he stalled his bike. He couldn't get it started and I don't know where he finished. Roczen held second, but Baggett was putting on a good charge from a mediocre start and catching up. Kenny picked up the pace a bit and things never got really interesting. That is, until Roczen inherited the lead on the last lap after the Barcia/Vincent incident. That was insane. I can see blame on both sides. Vincent was battling for position and not quite in the main line and Barcia definitely did cut over, but Vincent had an opportunity to let him by before. It could have been avoided by either rider. Barcia's post-race actions, however, were immature and inappropriate. Barcia still managed second place and Baggett finished third.

Millsaps nailed the holeshot in the 450 main with Villopoto in tow, and Villopoto quickly made the move to get into the lead. I believe it was Bobby Kiniry in third that had to roll a double and forced everyone behind him to follow suit, instantly giving Davi and Villo a huge gap on third and back. Stewart had his usual mid-pack start (usual as far as main events, anyway) and was having some really sketchy moments. He got completely sideways in the rhythm section before the start, but managed to save it. Then, a couple laps later, he clipped the step-off in that same section and ate it. He just took his helmet off and started the walk back to the pits. He didn't touch the bike or talk to anyone, just left. The rest of the race was a snoozer. The top three were spread out, though Davi was riding quite well. Jake Weimer rode by himself in third with Alessi having a good race in fourth. Brayton had a so-so race in fifth with Bobby Kiniry surprising everyone in sixth place. It was a little bit of a weird race. In the end, Ryan Villopoto made history and clenched the title, having a 105 point lead with four races remaining. He endured a treacherous series and he deserves it.