Team Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Ryan Dungey charged through the pack to take third place in Saturday night’s AMA/ FIM World Supercross Championship round in Salt Lake City.
The defending Champion and his RM-Z250 had a lot of ground to make up at the start of the 20-lap Main Event at Rice Eccles Stadium behind race leader James Stewart, Chad Reed and Davi Millsaps, but raced back from a several-seconds deficit to finish on Reed’s back wheel at the flag.
Dungey is now 12 points behind series leader Ryan Villopoto and three behind second-placed Chad Reed with the final 17th round taking place at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas next weekend, May 7th.
The conditions were tough in Salt Lake, with snow flurries through the morning and cold temperatures throughout the day, but Dungey and his RM-Z adapted well and were strong for the duration. After scoring the third fastest time in the shortened afternoon practice, Dungey had a solid ride in his heat race, scoring a second-place finish. In the Main, after a fifth-place start, the Rockstar Makita Suzuki rider quickly moved to fourth and was able to pick up third on lap eight. Then the reigning Champion and his RM-Z450 laid down a strong and consistent 12 more laps to claim a third-place podium finish.
“It was a pretty good weekend,” said Dungey. “We made a lot of changes to my RM-Z to adapt to the conditions here in Salt Lake. My Rockstar Makita Suzuki team did a good job finding areas we could improve. I had a pretty good heat race and got out to a pretty decent start in the Main and just started to put in laps. I felt good, but I just wasn’t matching the lap times and was losing a lot of ground. Overall, we did the best we could and we just have to put this away and learn from it and look forward to Vegas next weekend and try to go for a win. I like Vegas. It’s a little more slippery and takes good throttle control; I’ve done pretty well there.”
Supercross results: 1 Ryan Villopoto (Kawasaki), 2 Chad Reed (Honda), 3 Ryan Dungey (Rockstar Makita Suzuki), 4 Andrew Short (KTM), 5 Davi Millsaps (Yamaha), 6 Kevin Windham (Honda), 7 Jake Weimer (Kawasaki), 8 Thomas Hahn (Yamaha), 9 Justin Brayton (Yamaha), 10 James Stewart (Yamaha).
