Chad Reed blinks first

Chad Reed loses championship lead with 2 rounds to go.

Chad Reed’s AMA/World Supercross title aspirations were dealt a blow this weekend with the Aussie scrambling to a seventh place finish at Seattle’s Qwest Field.

Needing to maintain his consistent run of top two finishes in order to take the title, Reed was on the pace early, cementing a solid second in his qualifying race. He lined up at the start gates as the only rider to finish on the podium at every round of the Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship, to date.

Maintaining this impressive run and indeed his points lead looked like a tough ask just moments after the gates dropped; Reed crashed in a chaotic start pileup and saw much of the field ride away from him before remounting. The Australian, no stranger to adversity, quickly set about chasing back the leaders’ advantage. Uncharacteristically, Reed was unable to make the passes required to keep him in the championship lead, and crossed the line in seventh.

“Tonight was very disappointing, it all fell apart at the start for me and I wasn’t able to recover, I just ran out of laps to do anything about the guys in front,” said Reed. “This is not what we needed and will have to bounce back very strongly next week to mount a challenge for the title. In saying that, the advantage that James has is only 3 points. It’s a margin we can make back and we’ll be doing everything possible to get the job done.”

Reed is now placed second on the standings with 329 points.

The penultimate round of the championship will be held at Salt Lake City next weekend, followed by the all-important final showdown at Las Vegas.