The mental game is a huge part of racing and riders are always looking for something to give them an edge in that department. That includes a break in the schedule, and after taking Easter weekend off, a lot of guys were coming into Santa Clara rested and excited at the prospect of jumping back into the swing of things, well, swinging! But could a single off-weekend make much of a difference? Not so much, it turns out, and most of the trends we’ve seen all season continued in Santa Clara.
For starters, Eli Tomac’s habit of getting out of the gate poorly continued. It wasn’t as if the Monster Energy Kawasaki rider didn’t have speed tonight either—he was the day’s fastest qualifier and ripped back up to seventh after finishing the first lap in sixteenth. Getting the start was especially important too, as tonight’s track didn’t offer up much in the way of variation, and it was more about putting in clean, mistake-free laps than it was finding new, creative lines through rhythm lanes.
Another trend that held true is one most of the 450SX riders have got to be sick of. Yep, Ryan Dungey got a good start, took the lead, and led all twenty laps. Roczen didn’t make it easy on him though, pressuring him hard for a significant portion of the race. “It felt good to get a win here tonight,” Dungey said afterward. “Any win is great. Kenny was putting the pressure on and that made it tough. It wasn’t the kind of track where you could gain anywhere, you would just lose if you made mistakes and lost the rear. You could lose a lot of time in one lap, and I just tried to stay focused on keeping the traction in the rear. It was just being consistent while keeping the intensity up for twenty laps. That whole race, we were pushing the pace pretty hard. But that’s good. It’s what we train for and it’s how we practice so it’s not such a shock at the race. Every race is a lot of work and there’s a lot of effort that goes into each night.”
If you’re wondering what happened to James Stewart in the main, well, you’re not alone. What appeared to be some kind of problem with Stewart’s bike, possibly electrical, started during the 450SX main and continued for a few laps before Stewart pulled off the track. He was visibly upset, and for a minute it looked like he was going to use his seat as a punching bag. After the race we went to the Yoshimura Suzuki pits to try to get the story, but were politely told the team wasn’t commenting on what went wrong. One thing’s certain—2016 isn’t going well for Stewart.
Tonight was the very first time Auto Trader.com/JGR/Toyota/Yamaha front men Justin Barcia and Weston Peick both raced the main. Peick missed the first two races, and when he came back Barcia was already gone due to the thumb injury he suffered before the season on his mountain bike. So how’d it go? Not great, but not entirely terrible. Weston Peick finished eighth, which isn’t too bad, but it could have been better. After the race he told Racer X’s Steve Matthes he had problem with his hand toward the end and basically ended up just letting Tomac go by. Definitely not Peick’s style, right there. And Barcia? After showing speed early in his heat race before crashing, he didn’t have the best main. He finished sixteenth and was lapped by the leaders. Look for him to be better next week as he gets back into the swing of racing.
The boys out west may have been on break, but it didn’t seem to make a difference for Cooper Webb, who told us he’d spent most of his time off testing for outdoors. He took the win the hard way too, starting poorly and running through the pack with his main competitor, Joey Savatgy, on his tail. “We’ve been working a lot on outdoors and maybe haven’t put enough emphasis on supercross, but it all worked out,” Webb said. “Maybe we’ll do a little more supercross before Vegas.”
Webb also admitted to having a big crash during the week and he was even sporting a small cut by his left eye to prove it. Interestingly enough, when we questioned his team about it in the morning they told us there hadn’t been a crash and that Webb was just fine. Well, we now know he did indeed have a significant get-off, but they were telling the truth when they said he was just fine!
Second place is great, but if you’re Zach Osborne you’re probably not extremely happy about it. Osborne led eleven of fifteen laps, and looked to be closing in on his first win before he succumbed to Cooper Webb’s onslaught. Afterward Osborne said the track was one where everyone was doing the same thing, and the key was to just click off clean laps. “The track was basic and there wasn’t much separation, and turning mistake-free laps was important, and that’s something I typically excel at,” Osborne said afterward. “Felt like I had a good chance and maybe let one escape. But other than that it was a good day. To win the heat race, holeshot the main and lead eleven laps is solid. I just came up a little bit short. Caught two lappers in really bad starts and that chewed my lead down. Then he [Cooper Webb] went straight down the inside of me. Kind of a bummer there, but at the same time it was a positive result.”
Joey Savatgy’s night definitely didn’t go how he wanted it too, despite ending up on the podium. The Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki rider didn’t get a good start and spent all night chasing Webb through the pack, including Webb’s teammates, Mitchell Harrison and Alex Martin. He didn’t let Webb get away, and at one point was even closing on him until some lappers held him up a little. Still, a frustrated Savatgy refused to use that as an excuse when we spoke to him in the pits. “I got the gap on Webb down to 1.3 and it was over two seconds at one point,” Savatgy said. “I was clicking the laps off and started catching him, and he was catching Osborne and we were all getting bunched up. The blue flags were out, and whether some people didn’t see them or just didn’t want to move, well, it is what it is. At the end of the day I didn’t get the start I needed and that’s the reason we didn’t win. But we came out of here with twenty points and we still have a shot at the title. It’s never over till it’s over, I just made it a little harder on myself. Overall I’m happy though. I rode well, just didn’t get a good start. That’s basically it.”
Alex Martin, who always seems to ride well in Northern California, had a great night going and was even looking at a possible podium before he crashed in a corner. We didn’t get a chance to talk to him afterward, but Webb told us he believes Martin has gotten much faster since they started training together and says it’s only a matter of time before his results start showing it.
Finally, if for some twisted reason you enjoy watching big crashes that look incredibly painful, take a minute to do an internet search on Hayden Mellross’ crash in the main. Mellross somehow rode the front wheel all the way up a berm, launched off, got separated from his bike, and stuck a sickening landing on a metal fence right by the starting gate. It was definitely ugly.
