Mike Alessi grabbed the holeshot of the main event with close company from Justin Barcia, James Stewart and Bobby Kiniry. Ryan Villopoto, Chad Reed and Ryan Dungey were also inside of the top-ten by the third lap, but a crash from Kyle Chisholm after the second triple resulted in a red flag. The riders were staged for yet another single-file restart in the following order: Stewart, Barcia, Alessi, Reed, Kiniry, Villopoto, Dungey, Short, Peick, Millsaps, and so on. Villopoto was docked a few positions for doubling the triple’s landings on the red flag.
Alessi made it past Barcia on the restart, but Barcia made the pass back on Alessi before the end of the lap. Villopoto made a pass on Reed in the start of lap five while a top-three battle began to develop between Stewart, Barcia and Villopoto. Villopoto kicked it up a notch in lap eight and made a pass stick on Barcia, in turn focusing on Stewart. He came in hot and made an inside pass on Stewart in the corner before the whoops, but Stewart saw it coming, squared up the turn and maintained the lead. Villopoto took another stab at it two turns later—before the sand section—and made it work. Stewart tried to retake the lead a couple turns later, but Villopoto sensed the block pass coming and the two went low into the corner. Both riders didn’t have enough momentum to do the triple and had to roll it, which also held up Barcia, Reed and Dungey from tripling and created a very close top-five group.
Barcia was the first to make a mistake—failing to do a double—amidst the chaos a let both Reed and Dungey by. Villopoto capitalized on his lead and started stretching the gap between himself and Stewart, mellowing out the race by lap 15. The riders held their position until the checkered flag, even though Dungey started pressuring Reed, and Millsaps began to close in on the top five. Ryan Villopoto took the win with Stewart, Reed, Dungey and Barcia rounding out the top five.
