Round two of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship took place at the Carson City Motorsports Hangtown Motocross Classic and I always think that whether it’s Pala and, Hangtown or Glen Helen and Hangtown, the first two California rounds are always a bit of a different animal. I’m never too sure to take what we see as gospel for the rest of the series. This year though, I’m in a bit different of a spot, I think what we saw at Hangtown (by the way, the track looked mint and prepped nicely all day long. Loved the new roller section as well) will continue on the rest of the summer as we head east and things heat up.
I think if you were to rank Jason Anderson’s thoughts after Hangtown in order of what he’s most happy about it would go something like this:
3 - The $2700 or so he won in purse money from going 1-3.
2 - The $100K + he won from Kawasaki and other sponsors for winning the overall.
1 - Never having to hear he’s never won a motocross overall ever again.
That was the one thing that was always being mentioned about his career, but after a fantastic 450SX season, I predicted his MX overall winless streak would come to an end this year (yeah I know, real Kreskin stuff there), and after you saw how well he rode at the opener, it was a no brainer that one of the odder streaks in MX would come to an end. He was very good at Pala and even better at Hangtown, and when you think about it, it’s a natural progression that he should be better at motocross than he’s shown. He’s a very natural and fluid rider who is capable of being a bit of a freelancer out there. Think about how many times we’ve seen him go off the track and do something cool to get back on. He’s got a bit of an FMX rider in him, he’s creative, he can make jumps out of different things (as we saw at Hangtown), he’s able to move more outdoors, and he’s the exact opposite of a robotic, lap time, hit the same line every lap, type of rider. In short, he’s perfect for the outdoors!
He rode great at Hangtown and he’ll be a factor in this title the rest of the way as well. This win is just the start of more this summer, methinks.
Chase Sexton has gone 1-1-2-2 to start the season and he was less than a second behind Anderson in moto one, and Eli Tomac in moto two. The late charges are almost as impressive as his speed in the motos. Notice I said “almost” because his speed is ridiculous. He’s led every moto this year and has almost double the number of laps led as the next guy. Great start to the season for Sexton as he seems to have everything held together right now. And I don’t hear much about either him or Ken Roczen not enjoying their Honda’s right now, which is something that was lingering all during SX. So does Honda have a better MX setting than SX? I don’t think so. There are plenty of smart dudes over there and it’s the second year of the bike. I just think both riders are in good spots right now and this is what you get with riders who are happy and uber-fast.
Oh hey, Tomac’s joined the outdoor party! What a second moto for the three-time 450MX champion! It reminded us all, “Oh yeah, Tomac’s here,” after he had a quiet opener. So far both rounds have seen a better second-moto Tomac after the team made some bike changes. Everyone at Kawasaki, as well as the people around him now, have mentioned that if ET isn’t comfy with his bike, he’s not going to push it trying to fight through it. He’ll take the position he can ride at safely and live to fight another day (or moto). He reportedly switched from the KYB hybrid fork to an all-air one for this round and look at that, it seemed to work! Call me skeptical on ET’s knee holding up. I spoke to a rider who did the MCL in just like Tomac and he told me the outdoors are gnarly and one wrong dab and you’re back to square one with it. But so far, so good for ET!
Weird stat of the day, courtesy of my buddy Clinton Fowler, about Tomac at Hangtown: Eli Tomac has finished either fourth (4x) or 1st (6x) in every single moto at Hangtown. He's finished 4th in the 1st moto 3x.
And he went 4-1 this week! Super weird bro.
Well good news and bad news for the 250MX class is that Jett Lawrence was beatable at Hangtown. Well, in one moto anyway. After dominating the opener he took a third in moto one and truthfully, was probably slower than his brother Hunter, but Hunter made mistakes. That’s the good news for the competition. The bad news is that he was sick and throwing up and STILL won moto two and still won the overall. Jett wasn’t the fastest guy in either moto but he toughed this one out and widened his points lead. Anyone wanna bet against this kid?
Also in the good news and bad news department, we have the Troy Lee Designs Red Bull GasGas guys. Michael-Michael-Motorcycle, AKA Michael Mosiman, won his first career moto at his hometown track. It’s been a slow build for Mosi but to see him pass some guys and take off for the win in the first moto was cool. In the second moto he crashed out and DNF’d. Some of us out there know the joys and pain of a 1-DNF (Tim Ferry, Budds Creek 2003) and I can think of four riders off the top of my head to do this “feat”…Mosiman, Ferry , Chase Sexton in 2019 at WW Ranch, and James Dobb in 1996 at RedBud (on the podium after his win Dobb said he was exhausted and he didn’t know if he had anything for moto two. Spoiler alert: he did not).
Pierce Brown crashed out in moto one and then with a 40th gate pick, got top ten in the second moto. What an up and down day for the TLD guys at Hangtown, as well as for my PulpMX Fantasy team. I blame Wil Hahn.
Hunter Lawrence and Jo Shimoda were two of the fastest guys at Hangtown, and in terms of raw speed, I’d put them right there with Mosiman. But none of these three won Hangtown. Mistakes left them on the ground and looking up at Jett, but both riders have to be pretty happy with what they had at the race. It was impressive, come-through-the-pack type of rides that have to make them feel pretty comfortable going forward.
I was definitely pretty worried about Justin Cooper after the first round. He had a bad injury, he faded pretty badly in moto one, and wasn’t good in moto two. He chalked it up to not being comfortable on the bike and I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure bro.’ Not a lot of bike changes can get you back to where you need to be and besides, the Pala “setup” got him another pole position and he led early in moto one. How bad could it have been for him?
Well, turns out pretty bad I guess! Cooper went back to stock clamps, link, and hubs on the YZ250F (all for flex reasons) and turned his Pala result around with two holeshots, laps led, and a 2-3 on the day! I guess he’s fine?
Christian Craig’s day at Hangtown was a smidge off his impressive opener. He went 3-3 coming through the pack at Pala but was a ways back off the top two guys. This week he went 5-5 coming through the pack but was a ways off the top four guys. So he’s better than the rest of the dudes but not quite where he needs to be up front. I still say this is impressive for Craig but I’m sure he’ll want to get closer. He’s been going back to Florida after the rounds, which is a bit odd to me but hey, he’s got his program I guess. I just wouldn’t want to bother with that travel and the different terrain back east, but I also don’t ride a dirt bike as good as CC.
Levi “LaRocco” Kitchen once again didn’t get the starts he needed. Through the first four motos he’s got an average end-of-the-first-lap-position of 15th! Yes, that’s much higher than the riders around him ICYWW. He rode well to 6-6 scores and he found Seth Hammaker out there again like last week. Both kids have a bright future if they can stay healthy. Through the first four motos, these two kids are all right.
Some news and smaller thoughts from the Hangtown Motocross Classic:
Last week the UK’s Josh Gilbert was the talk of the 450 class and he showed up and ran just outside of the top ten in the 450MX class. I did a privateer podcast with him and everything! This week he qualified well but went DNF-DNF with big crashes. Welcome to the ups and downs of motocross! There was a scary shot of him hitting a metal stake holding a banner into the ground which is definitely something that shouldn’t have been there. Glad he’s all right!
Quietly, Justin Barcia hasn’t had a good start to the outdoors and quietly, Garrett Marchbanks has. It’ll be interesting to see if the trajectories of both guys continue the way it’s been going, or we see changes once the tracks change.
Don’t look for Justin Bogle to line up this weekend at Lakewood for the HEP Suzuki team. From what I gather they’ve offered to set up Marshall Weltin with a test on the bike and Bogle will take some time off from the team and come back for the World Supercross rounds in the fall or perhaps some nationals later on.
Shout out to Marshall Weltin in the 450 class and Josiah Natzke for being the highest placing dudes (Weltin 15th, Natzke 18th) out of a van. Forget the privateer stuff, we’re now going to break it down from dudes in vans.
Quiet day for the KTM vet riders outside of Antonio Cairoli’s holeshot in moto two. He and Ryan Dungey traded sixths and sevenths and didn’t quite make the splash they were hoping to.
Joey Savatgy came back to racing with a new ACL and a new team! Well, it’s an old team for him as he was back with factory Kawasaki, but when we last saw him he was on a BBMX KTM. It’s been a while for the #17 and he qualified well and started well in the first moto. He squeaked into the top ten, which is a good start for him, and he’s also heading to Colorado this weekend, which is generally a good track for him.
Meanwhile on the Privateer Island, things once again got wacky. Runkles left the SGB Honda team to get back to a privateer GasGas bike and Rodbell left the PRMX team (he was supposed to race up in Canada with them) for a privateer Husqvarna that he had NEVER RIDDEN before he hit the track on Saturday morning. The island life is rough and tumble folks.
Thanks for reading, we’re onto Lakewood everyone! Email me at matthes@racerxonline.comif you want to chat about this race or anything else.