Al Lamb's Dallas Honda, Atlanta #2 Round 9 Supercross 2015

Mar 2, 2015

With AMA Supercross reaching its round nine racing weekend the monster rally is now well into its second half of this year’s season. The last main event took place once again at Georgia Dome Atlanta. Whilst the last racing night turned out to be a rather low-key crowd compared to typical Atlanta turnout standards this week’s racing night was a great crowd puller. Mother-nature too showered her blessings to help Team Honda execute a solid finish at their final stop in Atlanta for the season. The main event witnessed Trey Canard accomplishing his fourth consecutive podium finish. Oklahoman rider raced off on a strong note quickly advancing to second position by lap seven. However, luck went astray for Canard who seemed all set to walk away with a first place podium finish for the night. Ill-judged mistakes cost him coveted leader’s pace which he could not recover until the end when he crossed the checkered flag at second place. Eli Tomac of GEICO Honda made the next podium finish clearly recovering from a lackluster performance in last weekend’s race.

It was a rather volatile night for Cole Seely who suffered a bad start and a costly mishap into halfway of the race. The night saw him crossing checkered flag at an uninspiring 12th place. The rookie has enjoyed a tumultuous first half season but looks all set to increase his stakes in championship standings in coming weeks. Consistency along with speed should be his best allies to progress through the rankings.

Highlights

•On the same racing weekend that saw Team Honda HRC crossing into second half of AMA Supercross season the team’s counterparts MXGP also cruised into season halfway in Qatar, halfway across the world. Closely following Trey Canard’s third finish at the podium in Georgia Dome was the news that Gautier Paulin has accomplished similar victory at Losail Circuit.

•Before the track walk on Saturday Cole Seely was interviewed by Fox Sports for a new TV feature titled ‘Legendary Influence’. The episode is scheduled to be telecast during Daytona round of the Supercross next weekend. The program will focus on Cole and Jeff Ward, his riding coach and how they have partnered for successful riding. Ward is a former AMA Motocross champion as well as winning two AMA Supercross championships. Seely mentioned that he had met with Jeff about 12 years ago and since have worked together at different capacities. ‘I couldn’t afford to pay him always so he would at times help me when he could. But the moment I could hire his services fulltime I went ahead right on it. I think his experience and knowledge on racing are very helpful. He has been where I am now and knows firsthand what I am now going through. So it is comforting to have him by my side’ Seely said.

•Canard finished with third fastest qualifying timing with 53.695 at daytime program while Eli Tomac finished at 53.507. Seely recorded the seventh quickest riding with 54.779. Canard was the fastest on track for the second consecutive main event weekend executing a remarkable 54.505 second lap.

•A great number of top drivers of this sport were seen roaming Supercross pits this weekend. This was largely due to 56th annual race of Folds of Honor QuickTrip 500 NASCAR which was concurrently taking place close to Atlanta Motor Speedway. Some of the eminent drivers to show-up were Casey Mears, Carl Edwards who were seen making a stop at Team Honda HRC truck to chat with Seely and Canard.

•Rich Simmons, mechanic of Seely got together with Brian Kranz, Tomac’s mechanic for a presentation to a large gathering of students from local Motorcycle Mechanics Institute on Saturday, the day of main event.

•Round 2 at Atlanta helped Canard to gain an extra seven point lead on Ken Roczen placed third place. Yet he lost ground with Dungey the leader who now have an edge of 30 points on Canard. Mistakes on his part made Seely loose valuable leverage slipping to seventh place while Tomac consolidated at fourth place.

•As the series unwinds midway so far at least one rider of the Honda CRF450R class has repeatedly accomplished a podium finish this season. So far Canard has six finishes out of nine, Tomac four while Seely has achieved one. A tie on lead points for manufacturers at 199 is shared by Honda and KTM.

Adios Ray Conway

As AMA Supercross made its final racing weekend at Atlanta it was also a night of farewell to Team Honda HRC. The weekend racing was the last working event for Ray Conway, director of racing at Honda. Conway describes his eminent role within the team in a much understated way saying he was the behind-the-scene guy handling logistics for the team. Conway was with Honda for the last 28 years. The director has worked through various roles for the company making his contributions in areas like service repairs, rider training, customer relations, demos, press, warranty and racing.

Speaking about his time with Team Honda he said, ‘my favorite role was the press job as I got to take something that didn’t exist before and then introduce it to American media and public’. He added that he was greatly spoiled by the fantastic engineering aspects from factories. It was his role to deliver the message of what and what could be done by each product. When media asked him to recollect some favorite memories he said that preparing racing bikes and providing rider support during Nevada Rally in 1995 was unforgettable. ‘That was most probably the coolest months of my career. Johnny Campbell built XR600R for the team while I built XR400R. We worked all night at Torrance after dealer visits in the morning. We won in every class. And that for me is an example of a classic Honda job where you get to do something extra successfully. Conway plans to lend his veteran support to the brand even after retirement.

QUOTES Trey Canard

“Obviously, I’m disappointed with the night, but I can’t really be too disappointed with a podium. I got a better start than last week, which is an improvement, so I feel good about that. The track was really hard to pass on, so I had to work really hard to get around some guys early. I got into second and felt like I had something for Dungey, but I think I rode a little too hard and started to make some mistakes that cost me time. Then with three laps to go, I made another big mistake, went off the track and Tomac got by me. I’m down 30 points now, which is a bummer, but I’m not giving up. There’s a lot of racing left to do, and I’m going to fight to the end.”