Call 32-year-old Colombian racer Santiago Villa “The Comeback Kid.” In June he crashed his Suzuki GSX-R1000 during AMA Superstock qualifying at California Speedway and broke eight ribs, punctured his lung, broke his wrist and spent a week in a Southern California hospital. But he came right back and won CCS races in his adopted home state of Florida. Then in October, he suffered second- and third-degree burns over 30 percent of his body in a horrific refueling fire during a pit stop in the ASRA Team Challenge at Daytona International Speedway. But he came back again, just 10 days after being released from his five-week-long stay in the hospital, and won the 2007 CCS Florida Overall Regional Championship today at Homestead-Miami Speedway, in Homestead, Florida. Coming into the weekend, Villa had an approximate 270-point lead in the overall Championship standings over Greg Melka. If Villa sat out Melka had a very good chance to take the Overall Championship, especially considering Melka had entered 11 of the 20 races, the same as Villa. And even if Villa rode, he still had to finish “reasonably well,” according to CCS Florida boss Henry DeGouw, to earn the Championship. And Villa did just that, in all 11 races, on three different bikes, picking up his bike after a crash to finish one race and winning another. “He was one gutsy rider today,” said DeGouw, a former racer. “He rode on pure adrenaline and earned that Championship. He actually increased his point lead on the day.” “It’s just unbelievable,” Villa told Roadracingworld.com via cell phone Sunday evening. “At the beginning of the day I was fast. I even did one second faster than I went in June. Then when the races came I started to get tired. My times went three, four seconds up. I was just trying to finish the races. I even crashed in one race because I was too tired to hold the bike up. By the fourth race I was very tired. My hands hurt. My feet hurt. I was in pain. I didn’t want to race anymore, but I kept going. And thank God I did it. “I am from Colombia, in South America, and to be able to race here in the U.S. and to win a Regional Championship and race against the tough guys in the AMA, I just thank God. It’s been a great year. Yeah, I had two bad injuries. That happens. I don’t blame anyone. I blame myself. What happened is part of the job. It will be better next year. I just want to thank Moto Xtreme, Dunlop, P3 Racing, Shoei and Otalora Racing. You just don’t know how happy I am.” The featured race of the day, the Unlimited Grand Prix Shootout, was won by Bettencourts Yamaha’s Jeff Wood. DeGouw said the race was the “biggest race I ever had in Florida. I don’t know how many people were there yet, but there were sportbikes everywhere and fans packed everywhere in the infield. And we ran all 20 races and still finished before 5:00 p.m. It was as close as I’ve ever come to having a perfect race day.”