On paper, the 2011 Monster Energy/AMA Supercross Championship was impressive, but as impressive as it was on paper, it doesn't tell the whole story.

Coming into the season, I called out Monster Energy Kawasaki's Ryan Villopoto to win the championship, and I felt good about the choice. Why? Aldon Baker. Baker has never lost a championship that his racer finished. He started MX training with Ricky Carmichael in 2001. Since then, he lost one championship with Carmichael, which is the one Carmichael didn't compete in - the 2004 SX title chase - and then he switched to James Stewart, and the only championships Stewart has lost since then were the 2008 and 2010 SX titles, both of which he failed to finish (2008: knee, 2010: wrist).

I figured Villopoto had enough speed, and he had proven himself capable of winning on a 450 in supercross for the past two seasons, even though he didn't finish the entire season either time out.

I also figured that San Manuel Yamaha's James Stewart - now freshly without Aldon Baker as a trainer - would throw away a few races with crashes, allowing Villopoto to win the title by winning a bunch and staying consistent for the rest.


So, with those two, I look like Nostradamus. However, I didn't really know if Trey Canard would be able to step up beyond being a podium contender and actually win races, but he did just that. He won three before dropping out of the series with a fracture to the same femur he broke a few years ago.

I also didn't know what to expect from Ryan Dungey. I knew the defending champ was going to be in the hunt, but his team had undergone changes with Roger Decoster leaving, and he didn't have the added benefit of the element of surprise. It's one thing to go out and beat everyone for a title when it's your first year. It's another to do it again the next year, when everyone's gunning for you and your number-one plate. But Dungey stepped up. He didn't win more than one race, but he was almost always on the box in a very Chad Reed-like fashion.


And finally, I didn't know what to make of Chad Reed. I knew he'd be dangerous, at least while his enthusiasm stayed there, but on privateer equipment, I knew it was a possibility that Reed would get beaten worse than he thought he would at the first couple of races, and if that happened, I figured he may get tired of it. When his enthusiasm waned, so would his results. However, in the end, Reed didn't get smoked. He was on the box constantly once the series got to Oakland. It took him a while to figure out, but he was always making progress. Then he won one. He could've won at least three more after that, but they barely got away. And then he won Vegas, which is what he had to do, but had he pulled off just a couple of the other wins - or even just Atlanta, where he finished third after crashing with James Stewart - he very well could be the champ right now.


At the end of the series, we saw five different race winners in 17 rounds, and had Kevin Windham held it together in Houston, we would've had six.

It was one of the most epic supercross championships in history, but the good news is that the season is only basically half-over, because rumor has it that James Stewart is testing for the outdoors as we speak, and Reed has yet to finalize whether he's racing. Regardless, we should have Ryan Villopoto, Ryan Dungey, James Stewart, Trey Canard (after a few rounds) and the rest of the contenders up and running outdoors, too.

And it's a fresh start.