Stewart in a class of his own at Anaheim II

Anybody ever doubt James Stewart’s ability? The one guy to give Ricky Carmichael a hard time never really had a straight run without injury to show what he’s capable of, Chad Reed and Ryan Dungey popping along to give Stewart plenty to think about, with a charged Ryan Villopoto having plenty for Lil’ James to cope with so far this season.

That all changed at Anaheim II this weekend. If you’ve got any doubts about Stewart’s raw speed, ditch them now – he just blitzed them this weekend.

The number 7 San Manuel Yamaha rider busted out a holeshot and just ran away and hid from the rest of the pack, series rivals Ryan Villopoto and Chad Reed gating second and third and working hard to close the gap on the leader but neither of them had the pace to give Stewart anything to worry about this weekend, Villopot trying gamely but failing to keep track of Stewart, whilst Reed tried gamely but failed to keep track of Villopoto.

Reigning champion Ryan Dungey had a terrible start, ending lap one outside the top ten but plenty motivated to keep fighting through the pack. Unfortunately, however, Dungey had the chain pop off the drive train of his Suzuki eight laps in and that was game over on the spot for the number one rider.

Villopoto would take the chequers for the number two spot just over four seconds in arrears, with Reed over 16 seconds off the pace, whilst Justin Brayton managed to hold Trey Canard off for fourth.

In the Lites class Josh Hansen toughed it out for an awesome win – the series leader broke bones in his left hand during practice but just sucked up the pain come race night.

Hansen led from the off but had superhot rookies Eli Tomac and Ken Roczen chewing on his back mudguard all race long. Broc Tickle closed up to make it a four-way race for the lead, but Hansen edged away to win by ten yards from the Tomac-Roczen-Tickle freight train.

It has to be said, Anaheim II was a major focal point for the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

In support of the campaign, many riders raced in pink gear – Stewart has won more than his fair share of races in pink before, but it seemed particularly appropriate that, when the whole field was wrapped in pink, Bubba struck to make his claim to the 2011 thrown wearing the same colours he wore when he burst onto the professional scene in 2002.

Closer to Europe, the World Championships have been rocked by the sadly all-too-familiar headline that Ben Townley is injured.

The 2004 World Champion has had a series of mishaps that have prevented him from performing at his best since moving to the States at the end of 2005, and it was widely hoped that popular Kiwi would regain some momentum in his career on returning to the GP circuit for the CLS Kawasaki squad.

Things, however, were not to be, and BT broke his jaw in a practice crash down under – Townley has a little less than two months to prepare for the start of the World Championships.