My how things can change in a week. When we left the Monster Energy Supercross Series last weekend in Detroit, everything had gone amok in both classes. Chad Reed's practice miscue had forced a breath of fresh air into the Supercross class, while knocking it out of him. The point gap for the series lead was once again down to less than a race between Reedy and Kevin Windham, who came into St. Louis this week only 16 points out of the lead. In the Lites class, Ryan Villopoto had continued closing the gap on Torco Racing Fuels/Honda's Trey Canard to come within three points going into the final round of the series here in St. Louis-the Gateway to the West. So without wasting anymore time, let's get into it. Also, if you missed any of the coverage from over the week, click the links below and get all caught up.

There was no better way to set the stage for an awesome Eastern Lites finale than to put all four team riders with a potential impact into the front of the main event, and that's exactly how it went down. Villopoto and teammate Branden Jesseman faced-off with Trey Canard and Josh Grant from the drop of the gate, and instantly the 17 other guys became a distant memory. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in attendance that could tell you how anyone beyond fourth place finished on the night. That's because it was the Perfect Storm, so to speak, and the whole thing unfolded like a well-written script in front of just over 49,000 screaming fans (most of whom were on their feet for the duration). When Canard went around Jesseman, who in turn basically let his teammate Villopoto by to begin the chase, everyone knew they were in for an epic battle between two of the hottest young guns to come up through the ranks since Stewart and Carmichael before them. Had it not been for an aggressive but not reckless move by Canard to take the lead before the halfway point that ended up taking out Villopoto, this could've been one for the ages. But alas, that's pretty much where it ended, with RV2 kicking his bike repeatedly and remounting in fifth while Canard clicked off perfect laps alone out front.

Immediately following the race and podium celebrations, the Pro Circuit crewheaded to the AMA trailer to work on what many guessed would be a formal protest against Canard for his aggressive move. Word on the streets is that while there was no formal protest filed, Mitch and the crew just wanted to make it clear to whomever was listening that maybe they should keep a close eye on the #48 Honda in the future. So what did we learn from this? We learned that Trey Canard is the type of rider who will take advantage of a situation and make his own luck. We also saw that this might be the first guy to get into Villopoto's head and push a few buttons to see how he reacts. Between these two plus a half dozen other super-fast Lites riders, the East/West shootout not to mention the AMA Nationals promise to produce another epic season.

Another thing that we learned is that Branden Jesseman just might be back. He's on presumably the fastest bike, on the most successful team, and he's finally producing results worthy of a past champion. But that championship was five years ago, and on a two-stroke: Unlike Villopoto and the slew of younger riders coming up into the pro ranks, BJ was born and raised racing two-strokes, while riders like Villopoto and Canard have only raced four-strokes since jumping to big bikes as amateurs. From the outside looking in, it appears that Jesseman may have finally clicked with the two extra strokes, and that really showed this past weekend in St. Louis as he ripped the holeshot and lead out the fastest three riders on the eastern half of the country with not even a hint of hesitation. To top it off, he received the word from Mitch Payton this weekend that his results and work ethic in Supercross this season had earned him the right for a ride in this summer's motocross nationals, which is where we're guessing both Jesseman and that Pro Circuit KX250F are really going to shine.

Speaking of the Nationals, we spotted Villopoto in the pits icing down his right wrist and also applying what appeared to be a bone growth stimulator, so maybe his wrist isn't all that much better and we really still aren't seeing last year's Villopoto? Here's to hoping that everything's good to go in there, because we're all looking forward to a summer full of healthy Villopoto spectating.

These past few weekends have really tested the riders' abilities on tracks that featured a variety of new and unusual obstacles. To add salt to the wound, they've also been made of fairly soft soil and ended up with deeply rutted jump faces and cupped-out whoop sections. St. Louis was no different, with a couple of truly challenging obstacles that most riders never did conquer. The whoops were one of those places, spaced about one third further apart than usual and not particularly deep; everyone was struggling in them all night. "Clumsy" and "awkward" were words being used to describe them all day, and it seemed to fit. There were also a few pretty unusual doubles thrown into the mix, which featured landings higher than the take-offs. Not really step-ups as step-overs, they seemed to be easy to screw-up, and it happened many times.

Another quite challenging section was located just before the first triple-a small'ish step-over triple with a takeoff that was small enough and close enough to the corner that only the elite Lites racers were doing it regularly, and about the front half of the Supercross guys. The track jumped up and bit poor Martin Davalos in the second practice session, that's for sure. He and Jimmy Albertson came together on one of the aforementioned odd doubles and Marty ended up with the short end of the stick. It took him a while to get up, and when he did, he was limping heavily. He would sit out the night and drop from seventh to ninth in the season's points because of it.

Another rider who met the track and/or stadium floor (not to mention the stands) up close was Brawndo/Solitaire's Ryan Clark. While running a solid fourth during the Supercross LCQ, Clark overshot the corner following a step-off tabletop and shot over the berm, sliding about 30 feet on the slipper concrete and ending up under a section of the seats. In fact, as the Live Nation track crew scrambled to figure out what was happening, Clark remained hidden in there somewhere, only to emerge with a limp to a standing ovation from the crowd. By the way, if you haven't yet visited the Brawndo website that we mentioned last week, now's the time to do it. Be sure to watch the videos on the right... http://www.brawndo.com.

So here we are, nearly at the end of another Supercross season as the crew heads back out west to finish up the western regional Lites championship in warm, sunny downtown Seattle. Or not. Let's face it, there's a good chance it will end up as a mud race (again), which means that the battle for the west title could end up being more interesting than the east race was. Between Jason Lawrence and Ryan Dungey, who's a scant three points behind, anything could happen and probably will. One good bit of pit gossip was who to expect to be on a 450 for the first time in Seattle. Answer: Josh Grant. Certainly a front-runner in the big-bore class, Grant could prove to be a spoiler to get in between Windham and Reed, but is that giving him too much credit? Will Grant be able to hop right in there and run with the veterans in that class? If the success of Ryan Dungey and, for sure, Josh Hill if any indication one would guess that he will, but let's face it: Grant's been anything but predictable in his career.

Another solid top-five Lites rider made his 450-debut in St. Louis and he certainly wasn't a rookie in the class. Australian Daniel Reardon, who just happens to be Grant's teammate on the Torco Racing Fuels/Honda team, is an Aussie Supercross Champ on the 450 and his debut in St. Louis was far from stellar. In fact, he probably wishes he could forget it. Then there's Tommy Hahnwho's results have been all over the place, but, generally speaking, he's been successful-especially at snagging holeshots.

Speaking of Hill, those GoPro camera systems are everywhere in the pro pits now, they must be handing them out like stickers to many of the privateers. We spotted at least a half dozen mounted on helmets throughout practice, but interestingly enough, not during the racing. We heard through the grapevine that FIM rep John Gallagher sees them as a problem. They allowed Yamaha to use them on a very limited basis, but now since everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, they've banned them from capturing any actual race footage.

All of which brings us to the Supercross class and whether or not Chad Reed was really hurt as bad as it seemed. Answer: No. Well, maybe. Okay... he probably was hurt, but will we ever truly know? Nope. So what's the point in all of this? Nothing, other than if he's just pretending then he's doing a pretty good job of acting, that's all. In the day's first practice session, Reed went "Reed Speed" for a total of two laps, setting down the fastest time at least for a while. Then he skipped the second practice, got a bad start and fiddled around with the likes of Troy Adams for much of his heat, then nailed down a second in the main event. So how'd he do that if he is truly injured like he claims? Because three of the guys that could've been up with him and Windham-Hill, Ferry, and Millsaps-were struggling through bad starts or crashes or both, and never made it up to the leaders. So the bottom line is that Reed really is hurt, and even though he's sometimes a bit overly dramatic in his descriptions, he's a stud and deserves to win this title. At the same time, though, Kevin Windham seems to be genuinely trying to chase this thing down and we can expect some extra intensity from him in this final push for the championship. "I've got my work cut out for me, I know that, but it seems that Chad does too," Windham said after the race. "I'm just working off of that and really putting my head down and going for this thing. Chad's won championships, he knows what it takes and I'm sure he's doing that. I haven't [won a championship], so me and the Torco Racing Fuels/Honda guys are just doing the best we can every day and giving it all we have." He went on to say, "I think tonight that we showed we've got what it takes."

So there we have it. The 2008 Eastern Lites Champion-Trey Canard-has been delivered to his adoring fans, and the 2008 Supercross Champion remains to be named. And what of the Western Lites series? Too many questions, too little space for now, but check back next week to find out What Really Happened as the series heads to Seattle for what will probably be a wet and muddy weekend.

Courtesy of MotoCross.com