Round 13 of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship took place in the Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, this past weekend. Unlike last year, the weather cooperated and allowed more than 47,000 fans to enjoy some serious racing under fairly dry conditions. The hole in the roof of the Stadium (apparently made "so that God can watch his favorite team play" - according to former team linebacker D. D. Lewis) has been known to produce muddy conditions in past venues, but that wasn't the case this year.

This 29th Texas Stadium Supercross event might just be the last as the Cowboys are currently building a new home (after 35 years in this one). As of now, it's not quite sure if Supercross will follow them or not.

With the top three in each division being back-to-back in the standings, this weekend's race in Dallas was nearly guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser - and, indeed, it was! Team San Manuel Band of Mission Indians' Chad Reed picked up his eighth win of the season. The win was Reed's fourth in Dallas and 34th AMA Supercross victory of his career in the premier 450 Supercross class. Josh Hill won a hard battle for second, while Davi Millsaps settled for third, leaving Kevin Winham - Chad's main competitor in the championship points chase - just shy of the podium.

The Lites event was no less impressive - after a well-deserved three-week break from competition, the riders put on a great show for fans who had been waiting anxiously for the return of their favorites. If fact, Monster Energy Kawasaki's Ryan Villopoto, who had suffered some bad luck during the 2008 championship series, could only be described by one word: dominant. RV easily won both his heat race and the main event and left MDK/KTM's Martin Davalos and Torco Racing Fuels / Honda's Josh Grant to battle it out for the remaining steps on the podium.

If you missed Sunday's race report, here's a link to our previous coverage published during the past few days. Feel free to browse through but also read on to find out What Really Happened in Dallas.

This time around, it was Honda Red Bull Racing's Ivan Tedesco's turn to design the track. If you ask any racer, they will tell you how nasty it was - with its rough whoops and tricky rhythm sections - and how it could easily qualify as the hardest track out there this season. It was essentially a replica of the 2004 San Diego Supercross track layout; Ivan enjoyed it so much (no big surprise here, he won the Lites class at that time) that he asked Dirt Wurx to re-create it as-is. Unfortunately Hot Sauce couldn't race this round due to injuries and ended up watching the race from the stands...

As you can imagine, such a track required special bike adjustments. Because of the wide range of conditions encountered that weekend, a compromise had to be found between a high-speed outdoor vs. bumpy indoor setup. As we were strolling through the pits, we ran into Monster Energy Kawasaki's Jeff Mitcheff, RV's mechanic. We specifically asked him about the special adjustments he made to RV's bike in preparation for the Dallas race. This is what Jeff had to say...

How did you set-up RV's bike for the wide range of technical conditions encountered on this new Dallas 2008 track?

I changed the tire setup for tonight, instead of running an 80-series in the front we're running a 90-series; instead of running a 110 in the rear, we're running a 125. We're also running 2-psi lower air pressure - we're running with 10-psi in the rear instead of 12.

Were there any significant adjustments you had to make during the practices or was that pretty much your initial setup?

Pretty much the same setup, the only thing we did differently was that we went in half a turn on the high-speed damping, which was just for comfort in the big long set of whoops - just to stay on top.

Any new trick parts that you guys are testing this weekend?

We're using a steering-stabilizer this weekend, for the hard-packed conditions. We're running a full-stiff setup right now; it helps with the hard-packed stuff. That's about it!

The practice sessions where an eye opener for many; this was their only opportunity to get familiar with this particular track and make the final adjustments to their rides before the big night. In the Supercross Lites division, Monster Energy Kawasaki's Ryan Villopoto was clearly the fastest rider out there. Practice session 1 & 2 were almost a repeat of each other, with Josh Grant, Branden Jesseman and Trey Canard trailing behind RV only a few milliseconds slower.

In the Supercross class, San Manual / Yamaha's Chad Reed was in the top performers, followed by Red Dog and Shorty.

One rider we haven't seen much lately is Jeff Alessi from Team Bad Boy Power Drink. He's had a streak of bad luck this season and has been struggling with injuries. As a result, he was forced to sit out most of this Supercross season to recover. We spent a few minutes with Jeff to catch up with him between two qualifying practice sessions. Here's what he had to say...

Can you tell us more about the injury that took you out of racing for so long - what exactly happened?

Yeah, I guess you could say that the season hasn't been going very well. At round two, on the first lap of practices in Phoenix, I crashed in the little whoops, got run over by Kevin Windham, and ended up breaking my hand - my fourth metacarpal. They had to put a plate in there and some screws to hold it together. So I missed four weeks - during which I didn't even ride once.

You initially hoped to be back for San Diego in early February, what changed that?

I showed up at San Diego (four weeks later), but I hadn't had a chance to even ride one lap since I broke my hand on the track. So, I went there, did the first practice, and well.. kinda sucked. It's as if I had to relearn how to ride! I did the race that night and was 7th best going into the main - which was a really big shock to me - but it didn't end well - I crashed in the first lap.

Later that week I drove to Florida to my brother's house. During the first day of practice on his track, I was feeling great and then I just tipped over. I didn't even hit my arm on the ground, but I broke it! This got me thinking, how could I break my arm just by tipping over and not even hitting the ground with my arm? Well, I remembered that in the main event at San Diego I was hit by a huge rock. I was supposed to get it checked out - I even went to Asterisk but they were closed. We think that's where the problem started. So I broke my ulna, I healed up a little bit, but it's one of those slow injuries I just couldn't really seem to get it to heal!

I went to Daytona thinking I'd "muscle" through the pain. I did three laps and I kept thinking "this thing is going to break!" So I skipped that race... The weekend after I went to Minnesota. This time my arm felt OK, but I over-shot the finish-line jump and ended-up re-cracking it. The folks at Asterisk looked at it and said it's 50-50, if you race tonight you'll probably break it, but this time it will be a clean break. So my team decided that I should sit out and let it heal until Dallas.

I believe things are better now, but I haven't rode more than 15-20 laps since I broke my arm in San Diego - which has been two and a half months now. Now here in Dallas, I'm trying to salvage things, trying to do something. As any motocrosser will tell you, if you sit on a couch long enough, doing nothing, you're going to lose everything! So I need to go out there and at least try something, I don't care if I go out there and have a bad night - I just want to race!

Now that qualifying practices are over how well did you do?

My lap times are a bit off but I'm not too surprised considering how little I rode this spring and the fact that our focus is on getting it done in the Outdoor [Nationals].

How did you prepare for this weekend's race? What are your first thoughts on the track?

Preparation started last Sunday, I've been watching videos from the Dallas' Supercross from two years ago - since last year was muddy. I watched a bunch of tapes, just trying to figure out how the track was going to be...

When I got here last night, I was immediately told that the track is going to be gnarlier than a normal SX track, so I decided to just focus on figuring it out on the track. After one round of practice I can say that this is by far the toughest track I've ever rode in my life! This is so different from any track I've raced before... honestly, if had I known this I'd have waited another week until Detroit before racing again. This track is brutal... the jumps aren't hard, it's the track itself. It's really bumpy; the whoops are extremely big, the jumps have a nasty kick-back... it's dry in some sections, but hard-packed wet in others. There's no doubt about it, whoever wins tonight is the best rider! I'll do my best tonight, but my first plan is to not get hurt.

What are your plans for the Outdoor Nationals this year?

I want to focus everything on the Outdoor series this year - no girlfriend, no nothing - I'm just trying to focus on one thing, because I had to scrub the Supercross mission. It has been a horrible year for me.

Are you still training for Supercross or have you already shifted to Motocross mode?

Everything is pretty much shifted over to Outdoor mode right now. Next week is going to be my first real week back being able to ride and train every day - I can't wait! Currently I'm not doing anything to prepare myself for Supercross. I'm just doing what I can in SX to get some lap time while getting 100% focused and ready for Outdoors.

What's your training like?

It basically consists of going for long bicycle rides, working out at the gym, and doing outdoor motos on a real motocross track.

How's your new team, Bad Boy Power Drink?

It was a pretty rough start... we had a lot of "bumping of heads" going into this season. It wasn't that they were trying to create a bad atmosphere for me, it was just that there were a few things we just couldn't agree on. But now everything's settled and Bad Boy is actually doing a phenomenal job for me! I wish we could have started off the relationship as smooth as it is right now. I think that things would have been a lot better for me, and I would have had a more solid program going into Supercross. You know it's never easy going into a new team... but it's all good now, this is a really great team.

That's pretty much it for Dallas. Check back next week for our report of the Detroit Supercross and find out what went down behind the scene.

 Courtesy of MotoCross.com