Ryan Villopoto

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Ryan Villopoto (born August 13, 1988 in Poulsbo, Washington) is a young motocross and supercross racer.

[edit] Racing career

2007 Villopoto started the season with a dominating performance in the AMA West Supercross Lites Series, where he won seven of the eight races. He carried his momentum into motocross, winning his second-straight AMA Motocross Lites Championship. To cap off a perfect season, Villopoto became the first rider in history to win the overalls in both motos on KX250F against larger displacement bikes at the Motocross of Nations.

2006 Villopoto began his professional career in the AMA West Supercross Lites Series at Angel Stadium for Anaheim I, where he finished second-place overall. He won his first race later in the season at Texas Stadium in Dallas and ended the Supercross Lites season third overall. Then Ryan headed to the AMA Motocross Lites Series with a little more experience stemming from his amateur days. With eight podium finishes and six first-place finishes, Villopoto proved to be unstoppable during his rookie season and became the AMA Motocross Lites Champion. That momentum was carried over into the post-season where Villopoto was selected="true"="true"="true"="true"="true" as a member of Team USA at the Motocross of Nations in England, and helped Team USA claim first place. Ryan was also named the 2006 AMA Supercross/Motocross Rookie of the Year.

2005 Villopoto concluded his career as a Team Green™ amateur racer and was honored for his many achievements as the recipient of the 2005 AMA Horizon Award. He competed in his first professional Motocross race at Binghamton’s Broome-Tioga Sports Center where he placed 15th overall. He finished up the remainder of his rookie season taking fifth overall at Steel City Raceway and second overall at Glen Helen Raceway.

2004 Competing in numerous amateur motocross races for Team Green and winning an impressive 12 titles. He won three races at Lake Whitney Spring National, three at the GNC Finals, two at Mammoth Motocross, and four at the NMA Ponca City Grand Nationals.

2003 Villopoto won 12 titles for Team Green. He won two Kawasaki Race of Champions races, four Winter Olympic SX races, four Winter Olympic MX races, and two Winter Olympics Olympiad titles.

2002 Ryan won the NMA 85cc Open, and placed second in both the 85cc Stock and Modified classes at the AMA Amateur National Championships as a Team Green Rider.4

Random: Resides Murrieta, California... Height 5' 5"... Weight 134 lbs...

[info from- http://www.kawasaki.com/Racing_MotocrossRacing/RacingTeamMemberMPC.aspx ]

[Edited by Kelly L. Beichner]

[edit] Controversy

Ryan Villopoto has been involved in some "on track incidents" with several different riders. Villopoto and Mike Alessi battled each other in their amateur days. In the summer of 2006, RV purposely crashed Mike Alessi at the Budds Creek national. Villopoto called the incident "Payback" for what Alessi had done to him in his amateur days. In 2007, Villopoto found a new rival, Jason Lawrence, resulting in several minor incidents during the Supercross season. The rivalry reached new heights at the opening round of the motocross season at Hangtown, when Jason Lawrence followed Villopoto around the track during practice, each rider exchanging a few block passes. Eventually Lawrence stopped in front of Ryan to block him, and Ryan launched his Kawasaki onto Lawrence's Yamaha, the two riders pulling each other to the ground. There were a few punches thrown, but the officials broke the fight up before it got too serious.

Trey Canard beat Ryan Villopoto in 2008 to claim the 2008 title, the last race Trey Canard accidentally caused Ryan Villopoto to run into the finish podium causing him to lose the title. Since then Canard has apologized many times. Ryan was very upset over the pass. He was visually upset at the end of the race and showed very bad sportsmanship, when he was cursing to the TV announcer. Rumors have circled that Villopoto is very upset that a rookie was able to beat him in heads up racing.