Reigning AMA Supercross champion Chad Reed kicked off his 2005 season preparations in perfect fashion at last weekend's Maxxis US Open winning both main events on his way to overall victory.
Main story of the weekend was the Reed versus Ricky Carmichael battle: Carmichael, who missed the Supercross season through injury, had just won the 2004 AMA Motocross championship with victory in every one of the 24 races but was making his Suzuki debut at the Las Vegas event, having split from Honda.
Carmichael took an early lead from Reed on the opening night, but lost it after four laps. As the final progressed, 'RC' stayed with the Yamaha rider but couldn't quite close the gap.
On the second sell-out night of racing at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Carmichael leapt to the front again, this time ahead of Heath Voss and Reed - who fell on the first lap. The Famous Floridian would hold the lead until he too fell - shortly after suffering clutch problems - in the closing stages, allowing Reed to take victory.
Ricky remounted but was forced to pull out with a damaged machine dropping him to sixth overall. Reed was joined on the overall podium by former Suzuki rider Nick Wey and Honda veteran Mike LaRocco.
"It feels real good to be back indoors and winning again," declared Reed. "I spent all summer chasing Ricky so it was good to be the one being chased again. You know that any time you line up against Ricky you have to be at the top of your game.
"I made a silly mistake (on the final night) but I had some good lines and could see that I was closing the gap. When Ricky went down we were level again and it was a race to the flag. I was pulling away a bit when his bike stopped and I can't ever remember that happening to him before.
"My new bike worked really well and was a lot of fun to ride. I didn't think they could make a better bike than last year's but they did!
