Of course, it was too little too late for Roczen, who had to watch on as Dungey celebrated a third consecutive title at his expense. “It’s a little bittersweet,” Bentley continued. “We lost the championship but we have momentum. We’re looking forward to Vegas, trying the get the final win of the supercross season and carry that into outdoors. We’ll see if we can’t come away with the championship out there.” 

Roczen is certainly looking forward to the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship and even said he skipped supercross practice prior to East Rutherford to focus on outdoors. “I was just riding outdoors and flew straight here. I haven’t ridden since Tuesday, so it was pretty long,” he told us.

Also hitting his stride just in time for Lucas Oil Pro Motocross is Eli Tomac. Like Roczen, Tomac has credited bike changes for his rapid turnaround (Kawasaki recently made some staff changes behind the scenes that seemed to have helped Tomac. Eli had brought his own suspension tuner to the team, but he has now been replaced by traditional Kawasaki and KYB staff). For the first time this season, Tomac found the podium in back-to-back weeks. “I feel like we’ve been good the past three weeks and we’ve at least gotten two podiums the times we’ve done it. It’s changing. At least I’m back to the front, where before I was scratching my head wondering why I was getting beat so bad,” said Tomac, echoing his thoughts from last week. “So now I can do what I want to do and race the track the way I want to and go where I want and I can fight for the top spot. It’s good to be here now and really I’m just looking forward to the next SX at this point.”

Honda HRC’s Cole Seely says he’s still dealing with pain from a broken vertebrae that he sustained prior to Santa Clara. Seely only missed three rounds, returning last weekend in Foxborough. On Saturday, Seely put in arguably his most impressive performance of the season as he held Dungey at bay for thirteen laps.

“I could see the red plate behind me. And I’m like, “Oh man, here goes.” I thought he would want to win the championship, but I also thought he would want to keep that podium streak going,” Seely told us. “I just had to hit my marks and ride my very hardest and not let those guys by.”

Dungey moved into third on lap 8. Check out Seely’s and Dungey’s times from laps 8-20:

Visions of some of Trey Canard’s bigger, season-ending crashes rushed to mind as he flew through the air, sans his bike, over a triple, as he appeared to clip a Tuff Block in the first practice session. “I’ve had smaller crashes and not been able to walk away from them, so to have something that bad and basically come away unscathed is very lucky.” Canard said in a team statement.

“Trey’s crash was one of those spectacular crashes; now that he’s okay it’s fine to talk about, but it was scary and didn’t look like something he was going to walk away from,” said Canard’s mechanic Brent Presnell. “He hit a soft spot with his rear tire on the face of the triple and just lost it and ended up flying through the air without his bike. Then he went out and laid down the third-fastest time in qualifying.”

Our own Simon Cudby happened to be in the right spot and grabbed a sequence shot of the crash. Trey’s wife, Hannah, also posted a video of the crash.

Canard would go on to finish eighth in the main event. “I wasn’t able to make passes quick enough and then lost some positions at the end to [Jason] Anderson and [Marvin] Musquin. All in all though, I’m looking at the positive and am thankful I’m healthy,” he said.

For the second straight week, Jason Anderson found himself off the box. While a brake problem was the source last week, this week it was starts as Anderson rounded the first lap in twelfth. “I ended up with ninth gate pick in the main so that heat race didn’t help me out the entire night,” he said in a statement. “I actually rode really well and came up from 12th to finish 6th. I almost had 5th, but I’ll make a comeback next weekend in Vegas. The track was good, but it was really tough to make a pass on. There was only one right hander."

Since returning from a wrist injury in Indianapolis that cost him 10 rounds, Broc Tickle had his best finish with a thirteenth Saturday night. “It was an improvement from last week,” he said in a team press release. “I got a better start in the main than I did the last couple of weekends. I was in the mix there with those guys but if I could’ve been just a little better this week, it would have been a really good night. I felt better on the bike and more comfortable riding in the pack. I just need a little more intensity and speed throughout the race and I’ll have a good result. I just need keep building. I’m not too pumped about finishing 13th but it’s a step in the right direction.”

450SX Class Lap Times

250SX Class Lap Times

Some 250 news and notes

For a majority of the nine-round 250SX East Region, it seemed like no one wanted to win it. The series has featured five different winners, a points leader lose a race due to visa issues, and another race winner (Justin Hill) miss all but three rounds due to a concussion. Just a ton of storylines in this class. But after a win on Saturday, Malcolm Stewart has taken control and leads by fourteen points with just one round to go. Malcolm, always an open and honest interview, admitted the title affected him last weekend.

“Last weekend, I think I focused on the points too much,” he told Racer X. “This weekend I said “You know what? The points don’t matter. I’m just going to do the best I can do tonight.” You know what? That’s what I did and look where it got us.”

Check out how the points have fluctuated since Round 4 in Detroit.

Jeremy Martin sits another five points back of teammate Aaron Plessinger and told Race Day Live! after the race that he knows the championship is most likely out of reach. “It’s a long shot to be honest, but we’re gonna go into Vegas and enjoy the event—it’s one of a kind.”

Martin went on to say the tricky dragon’s back was giving him trouble all night. “It was pretty tough. The last one had a pretty big G-out in it, and it was catching me just enough to where I would case it and couldn’t get the next three in the rhythm.”

Second-place Davalos also admitted the dragon’s back—and the whoops—were the sections where Stewart made up all of his time.