140 http://www.racerxonline.comI
’m hammered,” Kevin Windham said
at the end of the 2010 Steel City Na-
tional. No, Windham wasn’t enjoy-
ing some drinks out on the lake like
he had during the summer of 2008 and
2009, and he wasn’t yet celebrating his
race win. This time, Windham was talking
about how he felt physically after winning
a 450 National, at age 32, in his 15th pro
season. He was smiling
but also wincing through
the pain of going to the
limit one last time.
“The reality of it is that
I’m going to have to limp
through this week just to
survive Pala,” he said. “I
mean, I’m hurting right
now—my neck and my
back and my shoulders.”
But Windham has al-
ways been an opportunist,
and when the chance to
grab a victory was there,
he put his veteran knowl-
edge and grit to work, put
aside the old-man aches
and pains, and edged ev-
eryone else via 1-2 moto
scores. Why was the op-
portunity there? Because—you’re going
to need to sit down to handle this earth-
shattering news—Ryan Dungey actually
crashed out of a moto!
Coming into Steel City, the ever-con-
sistent Dungey had already logged an un-
rookie-like 450 rookie season, taking the
Monster Energy Supercross Championship
with three races to spare. He then won nine
straight 450 MX overalls to wrap up the 450
National Championship early. At Steel City,though, Dungey crashed on the first lap and
damaged the front brake on his Rockstar/
Makita Suzuki RM-Z450. Dungey DNF’d
but, of course, did return to win Moto 2. His
40-1 scores gave him sixth overall.
Dungey raced 136 450 Nationals in
his career and only failed to finish on the
overall podium in six of them. (Go back
and read that again.) He had only three
finishes worse than the sixth that day at
Steel City, but even those were top-tens.
The gift of a bad Dungey moto was rare,
but Windham knew best what to do withit, just like he did in his previous win, at
the 2007 Unadilla National. On that day,
Ricky Carmichael didn’t compete and
James Stewart crashed out in practice.
Windham’s victory marked the first by
someone not named Carmichael or Stew-
art since Windham himself had won the
Washougal National back in 2003.
But the years were piling up on the
popular veteran, who first entered the Na-
tionals in 1994. He signed a supercross-only deal with his GEICO Honda team for
2008, returning for a few Nationals in ’09
but struggling in them. In 2010, the factory
Honda Red Bull Racing team called with
a replacement ride, so Windham came off
the couch for the second half of the sum-
mer, armed with a factory CRF450R.
Windham scored some top-fives in his
return to the Nationals, and when Dungey
went down at Steel City, K-Dub saw his
chance. Early in the moto, he sat third be-
hind fellow Honda men Andrew Short and
Brett Metcalfe. Windham slung past Short
and set sail after Met-
calfe, and they went at it,
passing twice for the lead
before Windham locked it
down to win the moto by
just .991 seconds.
In Moto 2, Dungey re-
turned to dominate, but
Windham topped Metcalfe
again (this time by two
seconds) to secure the
overall win. It marked the
17th and final motocross
overall win of his career.
(Of course, as Windham is
perhaps dubiously known
for, that’s the highest win
total for a rider without an
AMA Motocross Champi-
onship. That Carmichael
guy really got in the way.)
“Every year, I get really sad when it’s
time for the Nationals to start and I’m
not there,” Windham said back then. “I
mean, I’m out with friends, riding my new
Mastercraft, wakeboarding, hanging out,
drinking beer, just having a great time. But
a sad feeling comes over me, like, ‘Hey,
this isn’t where I’m supposed to be.’ I
mean, it’s pretty bad [the pain], but the
racer inside of me says that’s where I be-
long, and that’s where I want to be.”ONE RACE, ONE PAGE
2010 STEEL CITY NATIONAL
FREDRICKSON// BY JASON WEIGANDT
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