Welcome to the future. Saturday night will see #4 hanging out in the press box with the old #3 and Ralph Sheheen, leaving the battle for #1 down to #7, who used to be #259….

Wow, it’s harder than I thought to make this exciting. With Ricky Carmichael parked, Chad Reed hurt, Kevin Windham off his game and James Stewart absolutely on fire, this weekend’s second Anaheim SX could be a long night for everyone but Team Kawasaki. Stewart has been riding with a smooth confidence that does not bode well for the competition, and he’s already done something RC failed to do in his record-collecting career: he’s swept the first two rounds of AMA Supercross.

The March issue is here!

Funny thing about Reed: We were already at the printer with the March ’07 issue of Racer X Illustrated when he crashed and hurt his shoulder a couple weeks ago. No way anyone can blame the old cover curse on that! He’s still playing catch-up, though with RC gone, he stands to lose only three points if Stewart wins again, rather than the five per race he’s lost since New Year’s.

Regardless of JBS’ dominance, CR’s injury, and RC’s departure, CBS will be there to show the AMA Supercross class the very next day at 12 p.m. EST, with West Coast viewers able to wake up to supercross at 9 a.m. You can also listen to all the action live as Jim Holley and Jason Weigandt call the race on www.supercrossonline.com beginning at 10 p.m. EST Saturday (7 out West). And don’t forget to watch the laps and lap times click off all day long at www.amaproracing.com.

One thing’s for certain: With Ricky up in the CBS booth, the opening ceremonies should be a little shorter than they’ve been (though Live Nation gets two thumbs up for both the RC tribute film and the cool James Stewart-gets-ready clip).

Here’s the track design the riders will be seeing tomorrow

In the Lites class, Kawasaki is a perfect 2-for-2 there too. A longtime war seems to be shaping up between mop-topped Ryan Villopoto and his imported teammate Chris Pourcel. Villo is the AMA Motocross Champion; Pourcel is the MX2 World Champion. They have traded wins this season, and with Pourcel all signed up for 2008 and ’09, we could see them battling for years to come. And it sounds like healthy rivalry too, as Pourcel himself told Racer X this week through an interview with Eric Peronnard.

“The riders here are really good and everyone is very professional,” Chris told us. “Ryan is obviously very fast, and I like to race with him because he rides clean and we can have a good race and not worry about bumping each other.” To read the whole interview—including how he got his truck towed because they don’t have the same handicapped-parking signs in France—click here.

It’s also high time for Josh Grant to show up. He was hurt at Anaheim 1 and tried his best to even ride, but last weekend he had a miserable night in Phoenix. He should be all healed now, and ready to make something happen for his struggling SoBe/Samsung Honda team.…

Chris Pourcel likes the states so far photo: Carl Stone

Actually, not everyone on that team is struggling: Travis Preston has put in the two best back-to-back weeks on a 450 of his career. No longer a factory rider, Preston says the pressure is off and he’s able to really enjoy his riding and training. I asked him yesterday what was going on with the abundance of recent injuries on the racetrack.

“We’re just on two wheels, and you’re bound to go down sometimes,” said #11. “You’ve got so many guys racing, and it’s not like the same guys are getting hurt every year. It’s just your time and it’s bound to happen. And everyone is trying to keep up with Ricky, Bubba and Chad, so everyone is trying to push harder and harder and you’re bound to make mistakes.” To read more, click here.

This week’s Troy Lee Designs Racer X Poll Question asks, With RC off, who will be next up on the box? Vote here.

Travis Preston wants on the box this weekend photo: Simon Cudby

Another struggling Honda is that of MDK’s Nick Wey. He’s been hurting ever since he tore a muscle lifting weights at his in-laws’ house at Christmas (seriously) and is just now able to ride again during the week. Simon Cudby got up with him yesterday for a cool, short film over at Racer X Films and learned that Nick lost $1,510 on that red-flagged start in Phoenix: $1,500 in “Holeshot Heaven” money from Progressive and $10 that he had bet Villopoto that he would get the holeshot.

Speaking of that start, David Vuillemin told us he’s very, very sore, but otherwise he should be good to go tomorrow night. His frightening crash, captured on the SPEED TV helmet cam, is destined to be a staple on future highlight reels. It also made for some good Bench Racing Ammo: When was the last time an AMA Supercross was red-flagged?

We went back to 2003, when the Daytona SX heat race was red-flagged, but then we found out we had overlooked an unfortunate crash from last year, as Racer X reader Jeff Whitton reminded us:

DV12 took a beating, but he’ll be back for A2 photo: James Lissimore

“Last year’s San Diego SX was red-flagged and restarted after the tragedy involving James Marshall. It happened right in front of me, and I was holding my breath, and squirming in my seat, watching though binoculars as they tended to him. I watched it on TV the following day. I’ve kept it on Tivo and have been afraid to watch it, and afraid to delete it, but just watched it again now. It was in Heat Race #2 on February 11, 2006. It deeply affected me then, and it still makes my heart sink now. Good luck, James.”

Whitton added a reminder to visit this important site: www.HelpJames.com.

Funny thing about Phoenix: There were two Red Bull sky divers at Phoenix for the opening ceremonies, but only one made it into the stadium. Here’s how our friend Frank Hoppen described what happened in his weekly letter to editors and advertisers:

This guy made it into the stadium; the other guy didn’t photo: Carl Stone

“Well someone, who must know how to make new friends very well, thought it would be the right time to have 2 Red Bull parachute jumpers bring in the starting flag to the floor. That genius idea meant opening that darn roof. Only that just one of the two made it into the stadium, though. The other one did miss the opening and was flapping like a fish on dirt on the roof trying to find a way down. So the roof was kept open because with all the mechanical movements involved in closing it and not exactly knowing about the second Red Bull guy location, who wanted to have body parts raining down onto the spectators that early in the night?”

The guy eventually made it to the podium and then gave a funny interview to Terry Boyd on the podium. And that makes this a good place to turn it over to Ping, who knows what really happened:</