With the last round of supercross here, the champions all but decided (the only thing exciting happening is KTM’s Jason Anderson has an eight-point lead in the 250SX West series and should be able to clinch this), let’s look ahead to the upcoming AMA Motocross series kicking off in Southern California. Here are a few small nuggets of info for you to check out.

In talking to Chad Reed it seems that he’s going to be in tough to head into the opening round of the AMA nationals at Glen Helen on 23 May. His shoulder, damaged at the San Diego Supercross in February, is not 100 percent and although he’s ridden a little bit on some flat ground he’s yet to be officially cleared by his doctor. So that’s put him a little behind the eight ball to be fighting for a title this summer.

Reed’s taken some steps to help himself by enlisting fellow Aussie Brett Metcalfe (more on him in a bit) to run the Team TwoTwo Kawasaki KX450F through the ringer to help get a base setting for outdoors. Reed mentioned that factory Kawasaki gave him Ryan Villopoto’s base setting for outdoors and predictably, Reed didn’t like it.

As Honda found out last year and Kawasaki found out this year, Reed’s set-up is unique in its own way and he’s not able to take what other riders like and run with it. Hence the Metcalfe hire for testing to see if Reed’s settings are in the ballpark at least. No matter what, it’s going to be good to see Chad out there this summer and I’m betting wherever he finishes, it will be much better than last year!

Image: Simon Cudby.

Lot’s of rumours floating around about Ryan Villopoto and will-he-or-won’t-he be racing this summer’s AMA nationals. I reported a few weeks back that he’s out for this summer due to a knee that needs some work, while Ryan himself said after the New York Supercross that he’s in for the summer.

I’m not sure why or what prompted him to declare he’s racing this summer but he’s most definitely out and that news should drop any day (and maybe by the time you read this) which leaves Monster Kawasaki in need of a rider to fill-in for Villopoto.

Although I suppose you can never really fill a rider like Villopoto’s shoes right? The hot rumor is Brett Metcalfe will be stepping right into the team and leaving his Canadian Kawasaki team behind.

Obviously Metcalfe’s contract had to be re-done and his Canadian team, Leading Edge Motorsports, were compensated in some way to let this happen (word is they’re getting Josh Hill to fill in for Metcalfe – got all this?) and now Kawasaki is getting a top five rider to ride the champ’s bike.

There’s no doubt that Reid Nordin (head of Kawasaki racing) got himself a good rider (and hey, what do you know- Nordin is actually neighbors with Metcalfe! That couldn’t just be a coincidence could it?) to fill in for Villopoto if indeed this happens. Stay tuned!

Image: Simon Cudby.

There was no doubt that Dean Ferris was the talk of the 2013 Motocross des Nations. The Aussie rider on the Dixon Yamaha squad holeshot pretty much everything in sight on his 250F and went 3-3 in the MX2 class.

This was coming off a pretty good GP season as well. Although he was committed to another year in the GP’s, Ferris’s ambition to head to America allowed him to break his existing contract with Dixon and get quickly picked up by the Red Bull KTM team over here for supercross and motocross.

We’ve seen more than a few European riders/GP riders come here and struggle with supercross and Ferris even admitted to me that KTM manager Roger DeCoster’s first words to him were “don’t get hurt in supercross”. Ferris did okay on the 250SX West Series; he wasn’t setting the world on fire, but he was a top 10 guy when the one thing he wasn’t supposed to do, he went out and did. He got hurt.

Now granted it was practicing for the outdoors but nevertheless, Ferris suffered a bad enough wrist injury that he may not make any AMA nationals at all. And that’s a shame. We saw what he was capable of in Germany last year and now, word is he could be replaced on the KTM team for 2015. The sport is cruel like that. Injuries are a part of the sport and it’s a bad deal for Dean Ferris and his American motocross hopes.