Chad Reed, on his new San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Yamaha, won the SX opener in a wild main event that won't be forgotten. Martin Davalos won Lites.
Stewart may be injured (better to wait for confirmation), RC fell and made up a lot of time to catch back up to second. Stewart rode the last few laps in a great deal of pain and fell at the finish line, and had to get carried off.
The crowd was much, much bigger than previous Canadian SX rounds. The stands they sold seats for (lower levels) were pretty much full.
Message boards are going crazy with what happened at the end with Stewart and Preston, so this is the deal:
Stewart and Reed are in a heated battle for the lead, and struggling with lapped riders. Something happened with Stewart's drive at the finish double and Reed and he bumped, sending Stewart off the track. In a hurry to get back on, he re-entered just at the landing of the double (Reed had to single it) and unfortunately, Preston was just landing and hit Stewart hard, impacting on his right leg. Witnesses said it looked like a T-bone, but it was just unfortunately an accident due to him returning to the track at a landing.
Stewart rode the last few laps in pain, then at the finish, he fell off, and tried to get up a few times, falling again each time. Preston, whose race was ended in the crash, was still there at the finish. He walked over to the ailing Stewart and leaned over to tell him something. Preston was walked off, and eventually Stewart was carried off, with his leg hurting badly.
Things got pretty heated, and it looks like a protest was filed on Stewart. Since this is an FIM, not an AMA event, you can protest conduct. This would be the second one, since Tedesco wrote one earlier in the day from the practice incident. John Gallagher is going to be busy!
There wasn't much pit buzz really on Stewart's condition until pretty late. There were people assuming it's a broken leg, but this needs to be considered unconfirmed until the leg is X rayed.
