Supercross season opens at Angel Stadium on Saturday

The 17-race supercross season opens Saturday night at Angel Stadium with several former champions hoping to challenge reigning title holder Ryan Villopoto.

Among Villopoto’s rivals is James Stewart, the series champion in 2007 and 2009 who this year moved to the Yamaha team run by Joe Gibbs Racing of NASCAR fame.

But also in the hunt for this year’s Monster Energy AMA Supercross title are Ryan Dungey, who won the 2010 championship as a rookie, and veteran Chad Reed, the title winner in 2004 and 2008.

Supercross is the stadium version of off-road motorcycle racing, or motocross, where stadium fields are transformed with mountains of dirt to create jumps and turns for the racers.

After Anaheim, the series moves to Chase Field in Phoenix on Jan. 14 and then makes its second annual appearance at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 21. The series races at Angel Stadium again Feb. 4, and its season finale is May 5 in Las Vegas.

Villopoto, 23, won the inaugural supercross race at Dodger Stadium a year ago, after also winning the first Anaheim race of the season.

The Kawasaki rider won six times overall last year in capturing the championship by a scant four points over Reed. Dungey was third in the standings, 10 points behind, and Stewart was fourth, 37 points back. Villopoto also won the AMA motocross championship in the latter half of 2011.

“Anaheim has a lot of hype” as the supercross season opener, “but you can’t win the championship here,” Villopoto said. “We need to minimize mistakes.”

Stewart won five times in supercross last year — including the second Anaheim race — and he now has 42 career supercross victories, third on the all-time list behind Jeremy McGrath’s 72 and Ricky Carmichael’s 48.

When he joined Gibbs’ team in October, the 26-year-old Stewart said he had twin goals: to break McGrath’s record and then to explore driving NASCAR stock cars.

Dungey, 22, also has changed teams, moving from Suzuki to Red Bull KTM whose team manager, Roger DeCoster, was his former mentor.

“Roger wasn’t a deciding factor in my move to KTM, but it definitely helped,” Dungey said. “I’ve worked with him since the beginning of my professional career.”

Villopoto’s goal is to defend his title, which he won after breaking his right leg in a race in St. Louis midway through the 2010 season. Carmichael was the last rider to win back-to-back championships, in 2005 and 2006.

Reed, the elder of the top riders at 29, won twice last season (in San Diego and Las Vegas) after forming his own Honda team.

james.peltz@latimes.com