By Jason Weigandt and Aaron Hansel
The opening round of Lucas Oil Pro Motocross doesn’t always serve as an indicator of how the rest of the season will turn out, and there’s a whole pack of people hoping that’s the case this year. Ken Roczen and Joey Savatgy served notice with big 1-1 rides to sweep the 450 and 250 classes, respectively, at the GoPro Hangtown Classic, and now it’s up to everyone else to make these rides look like a fluke. The way they’re going, that task won’t be easy.
That’s especially true in the 450s, where Roczen was dominant. Not Eli-Tomac-2015 dominant, but he ate the field alive at the beginning of each moto, making quick work of the top five and blasting into the lead by the second lap. It was unreal how quickly he went around everyone! In both motos, defending champion Ryan Dungey got going eventually and matched Kenny for a while, but he was never close enough to mount much of a threat. For Kenny, the day couldn’t have been much better, as he looked absolutely on point the whole way and even moved away from Dungey a bit late in each moto. This was much more of the 2014 Ken Roczen here—but we’ve got a long way to go.
"It’s a new season and everybody has a chance at another title, and for the whole season I want to bring it every single weekend," Roczen said afterward. "Last year I was playing catch up the whole time and we were in a bad place. But now I feel like I can go from weekend to weekend and progress with my riding. It’s going to be a hard battle and it’s only the first race, but I’m super happy I put myself in a good position."
And it was all fine with Dungey, who oddly has never won at Hangtown and usually finds himself in this exact scenario—leaving the track chasing a championship challenger, and often he’s the one who ends up on top by season’s end. Plus he can say he was closer to Roczen this year than he was to Tomac last year. Ryan Dungey on the podium. It’s all good.
"I think overall it was really good. We had two second places, and that’s good. Kenny got away in the first one but we were able to maintain a gap and even close it down, which was good," Dungey said. "But in the second moto, he’s really good when it gets choppy, slick and rough, kind of hardpack. He was able to get up the inside, and he made the pass. I definitely want to win, for sure, but we’re getting things started here in the outdoors. The speed was there and the bike setup was good. Round one was good and Kenny rode well today. We’re going to keep getting better week by week."
Coming into the season, the 450MX class is deep in talent, but most saw Roczen, Dungey and Eli Tomac as the pre-season favorites. Tomac indeed finished third overall to put that trio on the podium, but it wasn’t quite the day he wanted. Tomac carded 4-4 scores, working his way forward in both motos. But in the first race, he passed Yoshimura Suzuki’s Blake Baggett only to have Baggett stalk him the whole way and then get him back for third at the finish. In moto two, Tomac got to fourth but couldn’t get to third-place Jason Anderson. Third overall is solid but not the dominant performance we saw from Tomac outdoors last year—you can bet he and his Monster Energy Kawasaki team will go back to work trying to close up on Dungey and Roczen by next week at Glen Helen.
"In the first moto I eventually got to third place but wasn’t comfortable at all really and Blake [Baggett] ended up getting me back. I didn’t have very good lines and was missing some insides. It was disappointing," Tomac admitted in the post-race press conference. "We made a few little changes and came back for moto two and went the right direction on one end of the bike but on the other end felt a little bit goofier. I don’t know, I was just kind of searching all day in the motos. But in practice it felt really good. It’s something I have to work on for sure."
It’s also difficult to make comparisons to last year because the track was totally different. It wasn’t a mudder but rain had a huge impact on the conditions. It rained hard Friday night and was expected to hit again during the second motos, so the track crew didn’t dig the track up nearly as deep as usual, which is standard rain prep (a deep track would soak up the rain and turn into a mud bath almost instantly). The track held up well to the Friday night rain and when it hit again during the first 250 moto, it again held. But then expected late afternoon rain never came, and the track crew actually had to water the track later in the day to keep the dust down. Overall, compared to the deep, rough, rutted Hangtown of the last few years, this track was harder, choppier and faster. Things could be a lot different when we hit some deep tracks over the next few weeks.
Oh what could have been for Baggett, who looked massively improved over 2015 and staked the claim that he can break up the Dunegy-Roczen-Tomac pairing. He bested Tomac in moto one and overcame a bad start in moto two to get to sixth before hitting a rock in a corner and high siding. He broke his collarbone in the crash…but somehow gutted out four more laps to finish the race in nineteenth! Blake hopes to get the collarbone plated and not miss much time.
Things were even worse for the other Yoshimura Suzuki rider, James Stewart, who crashed in the first moto, popping his shoulder out in the process. He had his arm in a sling later, and it isn't likely he'll be back next week, which means the team will have no active riders at Glen Helen.
Anderson’s ride in the second moto was strong for third on the Rockstar Husky. Sixth in the first moto was okay—but the pack in the 450 class looked exceptionally closely-matched. Lots of riders in that group have things to be happy about. Cole Seely holeshotted the first moto and ran second and then third most of the way before eventually carding fifth. Last year he was down and out in the first turn of the first moto. His Honda HRC teammate Trey Canard got a great start in moto one—he was edged by Seely for the holeshot by literally inches—which is a great sign since Trey has been mired in a start slump for two years now. Trey fell briefly in the moto but roared back for seventh, then took fifth in moto two for fifth overall. A good day for him. Seely got a bad start in moto two but came back to tenth for sixth overall.
And while 10-6 scores for seventh don’t sound awesome, it’s at least progress for Justin Barcia compared to his awful supercross season, and actually better than Hangtown last year, too. The AutoTrader.com/Monster Energy/JGR Yamaha team told us Barcia had some arm pump to deal with but he was happy with his speed. In the second moto he was third and kept Dungey close early on before fading back to sixth.
We talked about Savatgy's perfect day, but several other 250 riders had very impressive days as well. Jordon Smith notched a career best with a second in the first moto, Cooper Webb and his injured wrist went 4-5 for third overall, and Aaron Plessinger finished the second moto in third, not far behind first, after barely qualifying inside the top twenty. Alex Martin was outstanding too, raging to second in the second moto (cleaning out Jordon Smith in the process) and even pressuring Joey Savatgy for the moto win. He had a chance to battle with his brother, Jeremy, as well.
"In the second moto I was like, ‘Okay let’s get going Jeremy, let’s go through the pack together.’ But I think he came in a little under the weather, a little sick, and he just didn’t have that spunk. So I was like, ‘Okay well I’m going to go around you if you’re not going to keep going forward,'" Martin told us. "I was happy. I felt comfortable, I was aggressive, and I was charging. It was a good performance and I was happy with it."
Speaking of Jeremy Martin, the champ didn't have the greatest day. He was third in the first moto but crashed back to ninth after tangling with Austin Forkner in the second. Still, fifth overall isn't bad and you know he'll be back strong in Glen Helen next week.
A great day for high profile rookies Tristan Charboneau and Austin Forkner. Charboneau went 6-14 for ninth overall and Forkner was eighth overall via 13-7 scores. Charboneau was ecstatic after the first moto, and Forkner should be pumped too. He was crazy fast all day and ran as high as third at one point. Expect some podiums from him at some point this summer.
You won’t see Kyle Cunningham’s name in any kind of standings from today, unless you look at the results sheet from the consolation race, which is motocross’ version of an LCQ. And even there he’s credited with a DNS. Unfortunately for Cunningham and Motorcycle Superstore Suzuki, his bike was plagued with electrical problems all day. The team thought they had it figured out for the consolation race, but when Cunningham lined up the bike died. Tough way to start out the season.
