2013 AMA Supercross RD 10 Daytona 450 Heat 1 HD

Qualifier earlier today, Ryan Villopodo, 117.7. Stewart, he was your fastest qualifier that's in this heat race, and he was second fastest at a 118.1. Kind of fun how the colors lined up here. You got three Suzuki, three KTMs, and if he just moved that one Kawasaki over, he'd have three Yamahas in a row, too. You got Weimer in there just spoiling our rainbow color palette. Stewart's been hot lately. That's James right there on the 7, all in red and white gear. Ryan Dungey to the left, Brock Tickle on the right there. Brock ran really good today in that final practice. Yeah, he had the best qualifying effort he's had of the year, I believe, and right there, Ken Rocks in 94. He's actually riding a 350cc KTM in the 450 class. Here we go, gate drop time. Oh, Millsap's not a good start. Look at that. Is that Brock Tickle out front? Yeah, but he's going to have to hug that inside, and he blocks the position, and he holds on to the lead. But for how long? Because flying through the air comes the number 25. 29. 29. It's the 29. Yeah, it's Andrew Short on the KTM. Andrew Short got that ride here on btosports.com KTM. Excellent start here. He looks extremely comfortable earlier today. Rocks in up to third, having a great run on the 350. Here he comes. Whoa! He just dives into that section. Here he comes, pat around the outside, and Rocks in goes to second. Wow, he is confident here, Ken Rocks in. Couple of KTMs up front. They make two bikes that fit this class, the 450 and then the 350, and look at Rocks in here, putting the pressure on Andrew Short. Now, neither one of these riders had a very good qualifying effort earlier today. Short was 10, Rocks in was 12, but now that's race time. Both riders have really stepped up their intensity. Boy, Rocks in is really charging, Jeff. And then behind them in fourth comes James Stewart. Oh, straight here in front of the grandstands. Right there, up the inside. Oh, and Short's going to take him deep into the corner, and then he misses it. Now, Tickle tries to get to the inside. He hustles in there on the inside and almost misses that right-hander. Tickle, he's got some speed down the main straight there. Yeah, we made some progress this week and definitely got his Suzuki running a lot better, a lot more comfortable for him than it started with the start. Now he's just got to learn to get that intensity up as he gets going. Yeah, I mean, let's face it. All the manufacturers make a great machine, but when Ricky talks about they made some improvements, okay, it's making the bike work for the rider, and every rider needs something different, and it's all about building the rider's confidence. This whole game here at Supercross is about believing in yourself and being comfortable and confident to go out there and push the limits. And little things can make big changes for the confidence of one of these riders. And Rocks in riding with a ton of confidence right now on the 350 KTM as he chases Andrew Short in a fight for the lead. And Ryan Dungey has closed in to join the fight up front as well. He's in fifth. There you see the former champion of the series. Former Daytona winner here, James Stewart, the seventh on that Yoshimura Suzuki. He's starting to make some moves right now, too. This guy has got some talent when it comes to this racetrack here. When you have to find these lines and your natural instincts take over, Stewart has it. For the lead, here comes Rocks in. Oh, he chases the triple. Tries to get to the inside. Stewart's now up to third. He's gonna put up pressure in the fight for second. It's gonna be a real scrub fest going down those three double jumps in a row, right? It sure is, man. These guys, this is a good battle going on right here. Hey, once again, Ricky, the racetrack, these lines are really shaping up like you designed it. I mean, every heat race that we've had so far tonight has been really competitive. Tickle tried to mount a challenge back on Stewart. Yeah, Stewart got a little sideways, a little cross-routed coming out of that rut there, and Rock tried to take advantage of that. It's a cool section here. Some guys going inside, some guys going outside. Now, I spoke earlier about how Ken Rockson was riding the KTM 350 with less CC engine, 100 CCs less, and that's gonna pose, well, could pose a little bit of problem because it didn't quite have the torque and the horsepower of the big 450, but Rockson, of course, who used to ride the 250, knows how to carry his momentum through the turns, use that momentum to his advantage instead of having to start and stop relying upon the engine for the horsepower. And the Monster Cam goes right with the leaders, and Dungey has closed in on Stewart. Watch this here. Rockson tries to come charging up the inside again. I think this time he's gonna make it stick. He's there, and he's got it. Now, okay, Ken Rockson is your points leader in the 250 West Championship, so he's had a couple weekends off here. Now he steps up, expected him to possibly ride one of the last couple of races, waited here until Daytona. Oh, look at Stewart. Wow. He triple single in those four jumps. Here he comes now to battle with Short. That was awesome. Yeah, I mean, that's something new. We have not seen that. That's what I was talking about, where Stewart is just so naturally gifted that way, and he has that ability to find these lines and make things happen on these tracks. He's had some big crashes here, but he's also had some pretty spectacular wins. Well, he cut inside there. What will he do at this corner? Back to the inside right here. Stewart trying to continue to find that way around Andrew Short. Short really holding a good line there. Let's see if he goes wide here and leaves that door. Now Stewart can block him right here. Doesn't quite get there in time. Now Short just lost position last lap by going inside. Now you see he makes the move, takes a chance by going wide there because Stewart almost pinched him off. And look at Dungey five on the KTM getting into the picture. Oh! Takes the inside. Oh, man, it is crazy in here as Short comes charging right into this mix. Three, four riders all battling in this position here. Fighting over second place. Meanwhile, Roxen, who's a dedicated 250 rider on the West Coast, his first ride on the 450 this year, out front leading this heat. Millsaps is joining the battle. There he is on the 18. The Rockstar Energy Racing Machine. He's right there with Tickle. Can he get to the inside? Those two fighting over fifth position. Remember, top nine transfer. Albertson has the final spot and Roxen continues to lead. What a story it will be if he can win this thing as we're halfway through this opening heat for the 450s. Across the stripe, three to go. Roxen still out front. And when we're talking about Millsaps there, he's your points leader. He has faced some adversity in the last week and a half. Okay, difficult race at St. Louis. Lost some points, injured his arm, had a crash this week while he was practicing and testing at home. But now I want to see how he responds. And look at this. Look at the moves he's already made in one lap, two positions. Yeah, he missed one there. Started to get a little huckabuck off the dragon back. Those things, you got to hit them with speed. If you don't, you get a little kick there. Keeping that front end light over there, letting the front end float. Really important to do in the sand here. Millsaps had a practice crash. He was telling me while he was training for this weekend's event, he is not 100%. But he's showing it here. Well, we're going to go back and take a look. This is... Oh, boy. Oh, boy. There's Tickle. There you go. Just punched short off the track. Just really tags him hard right there in his left leg. And that's the nature of the 180 turns, is when you're turning the bike all the way around. And if the fast line is to go wide, you leave that inside wide open. Tickle riding with a little more confidence, some intensity, a little attitude here in Daytona. Yeah, well, you got to. You know, it's time for an end. He's got the speed. He shows it in practice. And, you know, he can't let these guys walk over him. And I'm really impressed with Ryan Dungey. He didn't have a great practice today. And to no avail. Here he is. I mean, the guy just shows up to race. No matter how bad things are in practice, he always seems to bring the A game when he has to in the race. And that's what it's all about. I mean, he's a racer. Not the first time we've seen Ken Rockson in the 450 class. He has three starts in this division and a second at Seattle last year. He was eighth here at Daytona in 2011 and a seventh in Houston. That was the year he ran a couple of races in 2011. Got his hands full right now, but he's not dropping the ball. It's Dungey that's really starting to make some moves. And that's going to put Stewart there in this sandwich. So he's going to have to, you know, he's getting, Stewart's going to have to make a move right here because he's going to be trying to ride some of these wide lines to make a move on Rockson. In turn, he leaves the door open for possibly Dungey to come inside him like that. Like this, exactly. Here he comes. He's staying a little lower here. Dungey on the number five KTM. Stewart on the bright yellow Suzuki. A couple of factory bikes battling here. Oh, Dungey had to check up right there. Yeah, he did. Stewart chased up his line going into that left-hander. See Dungey doing everything he can to try to get by. Inside, not as fast that time. Go where the other guy is not. Yeah, he's definitely not following and that's what you're supposed to do. Well, in earlier today qualifying, Dungey was your eighth fastest qualifier and he was almost two seconds off the pace, which is really uncharacteristic for Dungey. But like Ricky said, Dungey's a gamer. When it's time to race, this guy knows how to get it done. Yeah, that's the thing. You can never count the guy out and he's so smooth and consistent. Rockson. James with Stewart challenging. Here they come and the crowd gets into it. Oh, Stewart scrubbing that. Look how quick he gets over that peak jump. Rockson not about to get it up but he gets way up with him. Stewart goes into the lead. Rockson was well on his way to his first career 450 Heat Race win and Stewart's going to take it away from him. Well, and you know what set that up is on those four jumps when you cross the start, he triple singled and got close to Rockson. And just like that, James Stewart gets Heat Race win number six. And this takes place behind him in the battle for the final transfer spot. Nicoletti on the 49 has it. Albertson on the 55 was in that position for quite a while. Albertson has the last chances right there. Now he's just not close enough. Make something happen. See, he kind of pulls up what's behind him. Says, well, I'll get some extra laps in and go to the LCQ tonight. So Brayton Nicoletti there through and James Stewart has his fifth straight Heat Race win. And you know what was so special about that on the last lap there? Stewart just turned a 118.3, which was his fastest lap of the Heat, the fastest lap of anyone. And Stewart did it on lap eight. You know, in Supercross, they are always coming up with innovative things that take place. Some of them are with the bike. Some of them are in the category of safety, which is where this newest innovation comes, Erin, the 6D helmet. That's right, Ralph. The 6D helmet is a brand new helmet that offers new patent-pending suspension technology inside the helmet. Take a look. Omni-directional suspension or ODS technology provides the athlete with a more compliant helmet during a crash or incident, but still has all the necessary protection for a severe accident as well. Isolation dampers inside the helmet can be defined as small shock absorbers. The two-piece liner system has the ability to shear laterally and linearly in relation to itself, thereby reducing the transfer of the angular acceleration forces to the brain. 6D helmets and their new advanced technology has taken it to the next step to provide additional safety for these riders. We've seen that in action a couple of times this year, and some guys have tested it. As you take a look at the results from here, James Stewart, Phil Nicoletti, those are the top nine going through. Eli Tomac was wearing that helmet earlier this year, Jeff, when he had his big moment at Oakland. It's been a couple of good crashes there by the Geico Honda riders, and it looks like they've got some nice innovations going on there. Interesting to see. Well, James Stewart joins us now. Five heat wins in a row, six total this year, James. But you had a bit of a battle on your hands there. What did you see when the door opened up? You know, I actually pulled my tear-offs really early in the race. You know, I was struggling, trying to see, and I don't know, it just took me a little bit to catch the rhythm, you know, with that little break between practice. I don't know, this track just caught me off guard a little bit, but I was able to get it. You know, I was just kind of buying my time, you know, checking some lines out, me and Ryan was going at it, and finally had to just go ahead and get Ken at the end. You know, so I found a couple of lines behind him and was able to get him. Hey, James, you had that line when you come across the start straight. You come across the start straight, and you triple single there, that when you're going right across the start. Did you do that in practice, or did you just pull the trigger on that here in the heat race? Well, I over-jumped it in practice, so I two-and-a-halfed it earlier today, and then just did it. Both times I did it, I got my boot caught, and that's why I kept going outside. I couldn't get on the brakes, but it actually worked out. So it's a hard hit. You know, the track's going to be gnarly, you know, passing one, but also just trying to be in shape and try to get it done. So we'll get it done tonight. Good luck, James. Thanks, guys. Okay, see you in the main.