New Face In The Crowd
When the factory teams unloaded their bikes Saturday morning at the Southwick national, a lot of the focus was surrounded by the Factory Honda Red Bull Racing team and the #154 bike. The question was, who is he? where is he from? and how did he get a spot under the factory tent? Well it turns out that Honda had a secret weapon planned out for the deep Southwick sand in the form of Belgium sand rider Marc De Reuver. De Reuver races for the Factory Honda Team in Europe for the Moto GP series. During Saturday’s timed qualifying De Reuver posted some impressive times that landed him second fastest and within a second and a half of James Stewart. In the opening moto on Sunday, the #154 Honda struggled coming out of the gate, and found himself in 25th position on the first lap. Showing some very impressive sand skills, De Reuver put on a charge and caught all the way up to 3rd position passing guys like Jeff Alessi, Cody Cooper, Matt Georke, and Tim Ferry in the process. The only two riders that got out to far was the fellow Honda teammate of Andrew Short and of course the one and only James Stewart. James has yet to lose a moto this season and now he only has two more to go until he joins Ricky Carmichael as one of the only riders to complete a perfect season. The season finale will kick off this weekend at Steele City Raceway in Delmont, PA. Though the championships are already decided, this will be the last chance riders get, to show what they got in hopes of getting a ride for 2009. This weekend will also mark the third and final stop of the Monster Energy triple crown, which James Stewart and Ryan Villopoto have won the first two rounds thus far and are likely to sweep the series. Make sure to catch all the racing this weekend as riders fight for their final spot in points and attempt to land on the podium. Make sure to check out SHS Powersports for all your motocross needs and hit up the SHS Blog for latest news and information!