Ryan Dungey raced to his sixth consecutive
victory and increased his series lead at the AMA Motocross Championship in
Millville, Minnesota at the weekend.
Rockstar Makita Suzuki RM-Z450-mounted Dungey claimed
two straight race wins in front of his home crowd to open his Championship lead
to 89 points.
Dungey was smooth, controlled, fast, and had the physical conditioning to
outlast the competition. He went into the event with a 64-point lead in the and
with winning both motos he has now stretched that.
"It was nice to pull a win off for Minnesota," Dungey said after the
race. "We can all celebrate it together now."
"Today was awesome," Team Manger Roger DeCoster
said. "And Ryan has proved now that the tougher the conditions, the better
it is for him. Today was really tough, really hot, and the humidity was I think
the highest it's been this season. It looked liked riders were struggling more
here than they were in Texas. But Ryan put 40 seconds on second place in the
second moto and he was smooth and riding clean. He's
doing awesome."
After qualifying the fastest, the entire crowd at the track was cheering Dungey
on at the start of the first moto. He shot out of the
gate on his Suzuki fuel-injected RM-Z450 and into second place as the racers
starting tackling the varying obstacles of the track. About 10 minutes into the
race, Dungey made his move and took over the lead. With his superior physical
conditioning and all the power he could ever need from this RM-Z, Dungey
started putting time between him and the rest of the pack. By the end of the
race, he had a 20-second lead and a decisive Moto 1 win.
In the second moto, Dungey came out of the gate near
fifth place, but he certainly didn't stay there for long. In one move, he put
himself in third place and then kept working on the leaders. Eventually he
found his way to the front and then, with the crowd voraciously cheering him
on, he built a nearly 40-second lead by the moto end.
With other racers succumbing to the intense heat and humidity, Dungey looked as
fresh on the track at the end of Moto 2 as he did qualifying earlier in the
day.
"To win here today and go 1-1 feels really great," Dungey said.
"I grew up here and I wanted to win, but even more than that I was just
enjoying seeing everyone that I grew up with. The fans out here are really
committed and they're hardcore. To have people behind us like that is really
cool, and not just for me but for our whole sport."