Tonight marked the second of three nights of racing in the heart of Paris, France and the Bercy Supercross. Night one was dominated early on by GEICO Powersports/Honda’s Justin Barcia, but a first turn incident involving the American and France’s own Greg Aranda took them both out and allowed Eli Tomac to score his first-ever major race win aboard the 450. The podium on Friday night consisted of three Americans with GEICO Powersoports/Honda’s Eli Tomac on top followed by Yamaha privateer Kyle Chisholm and Monster Energy/Kawasaki’s Jake Weimer grabbing the last spot on the podium. Here are the results from last night’s main event.
Final Open Main Event: (first round towards “King of Bercy”)
For complete round one (Friday night) results click here>>>
1 19 TOMAC Eli 2 11 CHISHOLM Kyle 3 32 WEIMER Jake 4 800 ALESSI Mike 5 7 TONUS Arnaud 6 120 SOUBEYRAS Cedric 7 131 AUBIN Nicolas 8 48 MARTIN Christophe 9 871 IZOIRD Fabien 10 27 WEY Nick 11 100 SEARLE Tommy 12 1 BARCIA Justin 13 20 ARANDA Greg 14 22 FERRANDIS Dylan
Night two:
With the 2010 “King of Bercy,” Justin Barcia, having his issues on night one, the door was open for a new, first-time winner to emerge in Paris. When the second night got underway, it looked as if Barcia was going to put his night one misfortune behind him and try salvage his weekend with a night two victory. The youngster with the #1 plate on the Honda 450 went out and dominated his first heat race of the night, but from then on, his weekend would go from good to incredibly bad.
In the Superpole competition, the Frenchman Greg Aranda on the BUD Racing/Kawasaki showed for the second night in a row that he is the fastest one-lap man in the building. All weekend long nobody had been able to get down under the 40 second barrier, but Aranda proved it was possible when he threw down a 39.8 to win the 1,000 € prize. The surprise in the Superpole wasn’t that Aranda was the fastest, but that Mike Alessi was second fastest. The normally not-so-confident Supercross rider threw down the second fastest time of the weekend with a blistering fast 40.0 to grab the 500 € 2nd place money in Superpole.
Superpole Results:
1 20 ARANDA Greg - 39.814 2 800 ALESSI Mike - 40.090 3 32 WEIMER Jake - 40.360 4 27 WEY Nick - 40.450 5 11 CHISHOLM Kyle - 40.491 6 7 TONUS Arnaud - 40.838 7 19 TOMAC Eli - 40.894 8 120 SOUBEYRAS Ced - 41.238 9 1 BARCIA Justin - 41.276 10 64 VONGSANA K - 41.629
The Eliminator
The next event of the action-packed program would be the Eliminator. In the Eliminator, the first race starts with a fourteen-man gate, ten of which advance to the semi. Four advance to the final and one of those four is crowned the winner. It is an exciting format with no break in between the three races. Friday night’s winner of the Eliminator was Justin Barcia, but tonight, Barcia would not only not win, but would end up finding himself the most hated man in France.
In the first of the three Eliminators of the night, it was Mike Alessi with the holeshot and a beautiful wire-to-wire win. Alessi was followed by Jake Weimer and the previous night’s winner, Justin Barcia. Along with these three, seven more riders would advance to the ten-man semi final, and that is when all hell would break loose.
When the gate dropped for the semi final, it was once again MotoConcepts/Team Alessi/Suzuki’s Mike Alessi with the lead, followed by Michigan Mafia’s Nick Wey and Kyle Chisholm. Coming out of the first turn and entering the first jump section, Greg Aranda got a little off line, cross-jumping in front of Barcia and taking the 2010 “King of Bercy” down. While on replay it was easy to see that it was just a racing incident, Justin “Bam Bam” Barcia saw it differently.
Barcia–while being lapped by Aranda a few laps later–decided it was time to pay Aranda back for what he thought was a dirty move. In a very unsportsmanlike manner, Barcia took Aranda–who was in a qualifying position–wide in a bowl turn and basically parked the BUD Kawasaki rider, ruining his chances to advance. At the moment, the highly French partisan crowd was spun into a frenzy, and Aranda was ready to show Barcia how he felt with his fists. But Barcia rode away and back to the pits, and Aranda’s bid to win the Eliminator was over. The four riders advancing to the final were Mike Alessi, Nick Wey, Kyle Chisholm and Eli Tomac.
When the final was about to get underway, Greg Aranda went to the gate thinking that–due to the illegal move by Barcia–he may get another chance, but that was not to be. The final took off as Aranda sat out, much to the disappointment of the French crowd. In the end, the final was surprisingly won by the #27 Nick Wey. Nick rode a mistake-free four laps and scored his first major win in some time.
Eliminator Final:
1 27 WEY Nick 2 11 CHISHOLM Kyle 3 19 TOMAC Eli 4 800 ALESSI Mike
Main Event:
With the Eliminator complete, there was only one last race to take to the track: the main event. At Bercy, there are a myriad of races throughout the weekend, but only the three main events–one each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday–count towards winning the “King of Bercy” title. When the riders moved into staging, the first thing that everyone watching noticed was the absence of the #1 Honda of Justin Barcia. Reports were that Barcia twisted his knee a little in the crash earlier, but most–reading between the lines–felt that not racing could be for his own safety. The French crowd had made it very clear by throwing whatever they could find down on the track earlier that Barcia might want to sit this one out. So the second main event of the weekend would go off without the #1 in it.
When the gate finally fell, it was Mike Alessi yet again with one of his patented holeshots. He was quickly followed by Friday night’s runner-up Kyle Chisholm, Fabien Izoird, Greg Aranda and Nick Wey. Up front, Mike was setting a surprisingly fast pace, but Kyle Chisholm was coming.
About halfway through the main, Kyle Chisholm made his move to get around Alessi. In the process, Alessi ended up in a hay bale and down. This allowed Kyle to sprint out to a lead and, from there, run his own pace for the night two win with the night one winner, Eli Tomac, grabbing the second spot on the podium. With Tomac and Chisolm now each having scored a win and a second place, the two will head into the Sunday finale tied in points for the 2011 “King of Bercy” crown.
While Chisholm and Tomac were up front and seemingly on another level, the real racing was happening behind them. The best race of the main event involved Greg Aranda and Nick Wey for the final spot on the night’s podium. Aranda had shown, by winning the Superpole two nights in a row, that he had raw speed, but Nick Wey was all over him showing Greg that he needed more than just raw speed in a fifteen-lap main. Nick played a fifteen-lap game of “catch and release” with Aranda, but in the end, Aranda was able to hang on for a solid, crowd-appreciated third with Wey finishing up in fourth.
After the race, though, things got a little awkward–if you can imagine. Justin Barcia, in a show of extreme courage and sportmanship, came out and apologized openly to Greg Aranda and the Bercy capacity crowd. While the gesture was an awesome one, the crowd was not having anything to do with it. The boos got louder, and objects flew through the air. We’re not sure if Justin will be back tomorrow night, but if he is, he may want to check his gas tank for sugar.
Main Event Final:
(Second of three main events towards King of Bercy)
For more results from night two click here>>>
1 11 CHISHOLM Kyle 2 19 TOMAC Eli 3 20 ARANDA Greg 4 27 WEY Nick 5 120 SOUBEYRAS Cedric 6 871 IZOIRD Fabien 7 100 SEARLE Tommy 8 800 ALESSI Mike 9 5 COULON Cyrille 10 7 TONUS Arnaud 11 32 WEIMER Jake 12 48 MARTIN Christophe 13 64 VONGSANA Khounsith
Video from a heat race during night two action – Videos pulled from Motoverte.com
1 Comment
I enjoy, result in I found exactly what I used to be taking a look for. You’ve ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye