Transmission: Orlando Magic - Orlando, Florida and its Citrus Bowl played host to round 11 of the 16-round 2007 AMA Amp’d Mobile Supercross Series on Saturday night, March 17, 2007. The event also dropped the curtain on the extraordinary career of Ricky Carmichael — A.K.A. “The GOAT” (Greatest of All Time). Carmichael, who grew up near Orlando, did his hometown crow of nearly 45,000 fans proud by placing a very close second in his last waltz, just .968 seconds away from passing Supercross championship leader James Stewart when the checkered flag was pulled from its quiver and waved crazily. A very distant 17.494 seconds back behind the fleeing duo was Chad Reed (Yamaha), who ran third overall. Ivan Tedesco (Suzuki) was fourth; Tim Ferry (Kawasaki) fifth; Grant Langston (Yamaha) sixth; David Vuillemin (MDK Honda seventh); and Team Sobe/No Fear/Samsung/Honda’s Kevin Windham placed eighth. In the 2007 AMA Amp’d Mobile Supercross Championship point standings, James Stewart leads the way with 260 points. Chad Reed runs second with 231 points, followed by Tim Ferry (183) and Kevin Windham (166).

Stewart and company will now take their gear bags and 450F motocross bikes and head pell-mell to the upper Midwest where they will next compete in Race City U.S.A. – Indianapolis. With Carmichael now out of the mix for good, it’ll be hard for Reed — or anyone for that matter — to match Stewart’s brilliant speed and daring.

The Citrus Bowl was also the site of round four of the AMA East Region Supercross Lites Championship tour. Thus far, a highly competitive affair with no one rider taking command of the championship, Orlando only added more chaos to what has already been a calamitous affair. Honda’s Tommy Hahn got the jump on the 21 other hopefuls on the gate to start the 15-lap main event, but the race was immediately red flagged when rider Matt Goerke went down hard, taking a vast number of riders with him. Caught up in the fray was title challenger Ryan Dungey. Unfortunately for the Suzuki pilot, his bike was too thrashed to make it back in time for the restart. When the gate did drop (for the second time) to unleash the 250F machines out onto the rough and sandy Orlando circuit, it was Team SoBe/No Fear/Samsung/Honda rider Billy Laninovich leading the way. Just behind him was PPG/Motoworld.com Yamaha rider Branden Jesseman. On lap six, Jesseman took the point form Laninovich, and would hold it to the end, winning his first main event in a number of years. Behind Jesseman, though, it was a beautiful mess. As the race wound down to its conclusion, KTM’s Mike Alessi made a charge at Jesseman, but hit the ground in the final corner, thus allowing Ryan Morais (Yamaha) and a very hard charging Darcy Lange to eat up all the daylight Alessi had earned. The pair would finish second and third, respectively. Alessi got up to place fourth. It’s now a full-on traffic jam atop the AMA Supercross Lites East Region point standings. Yamaha of Troy’s Ryan Morais — rock steady so far this season — leads the way with 78 ticks. Canadian Darcy Lange is a shadow in second with 72. Two-time race winner in ’07, Ben Townley, sits in third with 64 points. Mike Alessi is still very much in the hunt with 56 points, as are Jesseman Goerke, both with 54 marks on the AMA scoring sheets.