Despite battling an ACL injury, things seem to have clicked recently for James Stewart. The Yoshimura Suzuki rider won his heat race for the third week in a row tonight in Atlanta and looked to put last week's clutch issue, which resulted in a DNS, behind him in the Main Event.
When the gates dropped for the 450 Main, James Stewart got around Monster Energy Kawasaki teammates Jake Weimer and Ryan Villopoto on the opening turn to take the holeshot. As we've seen over the past several weeks, when JS7 can get to the front of the pack, he has what it takes to stay up there.
Villopoto never let Stewart get out of his sights, but the defending champion didn't have enough to get close enough for a challenge. Stewart and Villopoto ran 1-2 for all 20 laps of the race, earning Stewart his long-overdue first win of the season and moving RV1 into 2nd place in the point standings.
Points leader Davi Millsaps wound up on the podium yet again tonight. Despite a bad start (by his standards) that had him about 6th, he quickly worked his way up to 3rd within a few laps, passing Justin Brayton, Mike Alessi and Weimer in the process. Unable to catch the leaders, the Rockstar Energy Racing rider was basically able to run his own race after pulling away from a 4th-place Justin Barcia. Even though he finished behind RV, Millsaps was still able to add 1 point to his overall lead.
Behind Barcia, a battle for 5th developed between Trey Canard and Ryan Dungey. Canard held off a strong challenge from the Red Bull KTM rider, who was all over the back of him for awhile, to grab the top-five finish. Earlier in the night, Trey Canard was forced to qualify through the LCQ after pulling out of his heat race with some spoke problems.
Making his highly-anticipated 450 Supercross debut, Eli Tomac finished behind that group in 7th. He made a few passes during the Main, but didn't get off to a good enough start to be a factor in this one.
Returning to action after sitting out a few rounds with a rib injury, Jake Weimer nearly took the holeshot, then faded back to 8th. Behind him in 9th was Chad Reed, whose recent string of top-five finishes was snapped. Mike Alessi rounded out the top ten after getting off to another top-five start.
Also grabbing a top-five start tonight was Justin Brayton, but a fall on Lap 2 sent him towards the back of the back, and he finished 13th. Meanwhile, Andrew Short finished 14th in his debut with BTO Sports KTM, but did look good in his heat race en route to a 2nd place result.
Atlanta 450SX Results
1. James Stewart
2. Ryan Villopoto
3. Davi Millsaps
4. Justin Barcia
5. Trey Canard
6. Ryan Dungey
7. Eli Tomac
8. Jake Weimer
9. Chad Reed
10. Mike Alessi
11. Matt Goerke
12. Broc Tickle
13. Justin Brayton
14. Andrew Short
15. PJ Larsen
16. Josh Hill
17. Chris Blose
18. Les Smith
19. Jimmy Albertson
20. Bobby Kiniry
450SX Point Standings
1. Davi Millsaps, 174
2. Ryan Villopoto, -22
3. Ryan Dungey, -26
4. Trey Canard, -39
5. Chad Reed, -47
6. Justin Barcia, -58
7. Andrew Short, -72
8. James Stewart, -74
9. Justin Brayton, -83
10. Matt Goerke, -95
