Former Motocross world champion Ben Townley raced in his very first US Open Supercross in front of a sell out crowd in Las Vegas last weekend.

Townley had a tough Friday night final in the Supercross Lites class and, while he set the fastest lap of the race, a mistake over the muddy outside double saw the Kiwi go down. He battled to get his Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki started and finally re-entered the race to finish 10th.

Saturday night's final went way better for the BT where he just missed out on a podium finish to come home in 4th.

"It's been a really good experience for me," explained Townley. "I'm really glad I rode the Open. It is my first official Supercross in the US and it didn't go too badly. There are a lot of aspects I still need to improve on so I'll take this experience and work on my weak points. The racing was really intense this weekend and I'll need to work on getting used to that.

"A lot of time is made up in the whoops and with them changing the direction of the track on Saturday I didn't feel as confident going into them so that's definitely an area I need to work on. Corner speed is also so important in Supercross and watching guys like Ricky and James is a perfect example of how to do it. I have got plenty of time before the 2007 Supercross kicks off so I'm looking forward to getting back to the training tracks and pumping out those laps!" he concluded.