Image: Simon Cudby.

Discount Tire/TwoTwo Motorsports team owner/rider Chad Reed surged to a season-best sixth overall at Indiana’s inaugural Lucas Oil Pro Motocross event last weekend, in difficult rain-soaked conditions at Ironman Raceway.

Reed went 7-6 on board his Kawasaki KX450F, negotiating the mud with relative ease after what has been a puzzling season for the 2009 series champion.

“I felt solid actually coming into the week,” Reed told Racer X Online. “Until the last month I’ve been basically chilling at home with the kids and with Ellie – it’s kind of been my off-season. Maybe I just need to have a little fun again.

“I felt decent coming into the weekend and then practice went well. I got good starts both motos, like I was up there. Second moto I actually was about fourth out of the gate, and then I don’t know if I wasn’t aggressive enough or it was one of those situations where I found myself in the wrong place, wrong time.”

Reed was in the battle for third during moto two with Ryan Sipes and Andrew Short, and has confirmed he’s moved away from Showa’s SFF-AIR fork after persisting with it throughout the season.

“Honestly, I actually felt like my pace was easily… kind of in normal conditions maybe pass those guys and go to third,” he reflected. “I just didn’t have any goggles on. I was just kind of a passenger really, but overall it was good. I felt like some of the feeling that I’ve been chasing is just coming back.

“I hate to say it but we’re back on a spring fork and maybe that’s why. But hopefully next week we’ll have the same kind of comfort that we had this week.”

The result bumped Reed back up to 10th in the championship standings with one round remaining, fending off Honda stand-in Frederik Noren by a single point entering Utah this Saturday.