Tense Supercross title battles restart in Dallas.

Texas Stadium, in the Dallas suburb of Irving, will host round 14 of the 16-race Amp'd Mobile AMA Supercross Series and round 15 of the 17-race World Supercross Grand Prix championship this Saturday - with both titles hotly contested.

One could easily pick any of the past winners to take victory again this weekend and not make a bad choice: James Stewart, Chad Reed, Ricky Carmichael and Kevin Windham are all past victors of the Dallas Supercross and the four are expected to be the leading contenders this year.

The two championships are coming off a two-week break and the riders should be rejuvenated and ready to get back to racing as the series winds down with the final three events.

Makita Suzuki's Carmichael holds a 12-point lead over Yamaha's Reed in the AMA championship coming into Texas Stadium, with Kawasaki's top rider Stewart a close third. However, in the world championship, man-of-the-moment Stewart is now tied with Carmichael at the top of the standings!

As such, there are no tactics for the SX GP title - other than to win - but in the more prestigious AMA championship, Carmichael can now finish second in the final three rounds and still take the title, regardless of what Stewart or Reed do. Nevertheless, RC denies that he'll intentionally take seconds as a path to the championship.

"The championship is by far the most important and I'm not going to jeopardise that, but I still want to win some races before it's all said and done," said Carmichael, who has six wins on the season and is the second leading all-time AMA Supercross race winner.

Reed has preserved his second-place in the AMA series in spite of riding with an injured shoulder since the Daytona round. The grit showed by the Australian has paid off and kept him in the championship hunt.

"I'm hoping the time off before Dallas gives my shoulder a chance to get better," Reed said after the last round in Houston on April 1. "It was important for me to keep racing through the injury because you never know in racing when even just a single point can make a major difference."

But with Carmichael preserving his lead and Reed riding hurt, no one has been able to match the pace of Stewart in the last three rounds.

"I'm just focusing on one race at a time," said the defending Dallas winner. "If I can keep winning I'll be happy. I haven't given up on winning the AMA championship, but I can only take care of what's under my control and if I keep winning then I'll be satisfied with that."

Honda rider Windham seems to get stronger each week after returning from pre-season injury last month. Windham is the fourth former Dallas Supercross winner and he would love to at least be able to have a victory to point to when the 2006 Supercross season is complete.

Meanwhile, the AMA Supercross Lites West Series resumes in Dallas after a two-month break. Similar to the main Supercross class the Lites West division is essentially a three-rider race going into the last two rounds.

Just two points separate Honda's Andrew Short and Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Grant Langston coming into Dallas. Red Bull KTM's Nate Ramsey is also very much in the championship picture. Langston and Ramsey may have a leg up on Short in Dallas since both are former winners of the race.