After a nice weekend off, the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship came storming back with the Spring Creek National in Millville, Minnesota.
The track received massive amounts of rain in the days leading up to the event, but the track crew got it turned around for the motos in the afternoon. The track got very rough and it seemed to spread the riders out pretty quickly. Because of the gaps in speed, there wasn't much action up front aside from Zach Osborne's pass on Joey Savatgy for the lead in the second moto
That doesn't mean there aren't interesting things to look at, though. First, let’s dive into the lap data to figure out how these races were won and lost with this week’s Sign of the Lap Times. First, our traditional lap time charts.
450 Moto 1
| Lap Rank | Finish | Best Lap | On Lap | Avg Lap Time | Rider |
| 1 | 1st | 2:24.800 | 4 | 2:28.588 | Marvin Musquin |
| 2 | 2nd | 2:25.796 | 8 | 2:29.148 | Eli Tomac |
| 3 | 3rd | 2:27.612 | 2 | 2:30.581 | Dean Wilson |
| 4 | 5th | 2:27.867 | 2 | 2:31.212 | Justin Barcia |
| 5 | 7th | 2:28.005 | 2 | 2:33.019 | Christian Craig |
| 6 | 4th | 2:28.291 | 3 | 2:30.496 | Cooper Webb |
| 7 | 6th | 2:28.467 | 4 | 2:31.374 | Blake Baggett |
| 8 | 8th | 2:28.737 | 2 | 2:33.879 | Cole Seely |
| 9 | 9th | 2:28.960 | 7 | 2:33.787 | Henry Miller |
| 10 | 16th | 2:29.004 | 4 | 2:34.049 | Justin Bogle |
450 Moto 2
| Lap Rank | Finish | Best Lap | On Lap | Avg Lap Time | Rider |
| 1 | 2nd | 2:25.579 | 4 | 2:31.016 | Blake Baggett |
| 2 | 1st | 2:25.603 | 4 | 2:29.988 | Marvin Musquin |
| 3 | 5th | 2:26.916 | 4 | 2:33.603 | Eli Tomac |
| 4 | 8th | 2:28.496 | 3 | 2:36.256 | Justin Barcia |
| 5 | 4th | 2:28.568 | 3 | 2:33.256 | Martin Davalos |
| 6 | 3rd | 2:28.584 | 6 | 2:32.739 | Dean Wilson |
| 7 | 6th | 2:29.154 | 3 | 2:34.075 | Cole Seely |
| 8 | 33rd | 2:29.342 | 2 | 2:33.708 | Justin Bogle |
| 9 | 9th | 2:29.433 | 4 | 2:36.113 | Cooper Webb |
| 10 | 10th | 2:30.211 | 5 | 2:36.213 | Fredrik Noren |
250 Moto 1
| Lap Rank | Finish | Best Lap | On Lap | Avg Lap Time | Rider |
| 1 | 1st | 2:25.060 | 2 | 2:30.743 | Joey Savatgy |
| 2 | 2nd | 2:26.020 | 2 | 2:31.196 | Alex Martin |
| 3 | 5th | 2:27.510 | 2 | 2:33.078 | RJ Hampshire |
| 4 | 8th | 2:27.717 | 3 | 2:35.536 | Zach Osborne |
| 5 | 3rd | 2:28.064 | 2 | 2:31.717 | Aaron Plessinger |
| 6 | 4th | 2:28.544 | 2 | 2:31.977 | Jeremy Martin |
| 7 | 6th | 2:28.860 | 3 | 2:33.340 | Adam Cianciarulo |
| 8 | 10th | 2:29.202 | 3 | 2:35.508 | Steven Clarke |
| 9 | 12th | 2:29.703 | 2 | 2:34.291 | Chase Sexton |
| 10 | 36th | 2:30.324 | 2 | 2:36.720 | Bradley Taft |
250 Moto 2
| Lap Rank | Finish | Best Lap | On Lap | Avg Lap Time | Rider |
| 1 | 1st | 2:27.704 | 2 | 2:30.940 | Zach Osborne |
| 2 | 12th | 2:27.755 | 2 | 2:36.967 | Aaron Plessinger |
| 3 | 2nd | 2:28.719 | 4 | 2:32.169 | Joey Savatgy |
| 4 | 3rd | 2:28.989 | 3 | 2:32.512 | Shane McElrath |
| 5 | 5th | 2:29.025 | 4 | 2:33.349 | Jeremy Martin |
| 6 | 8th | 2:29.371 | 2 | 2:34.967 | Dylan Ferrandis |
| 7 | 4th | 2:29.390 | 3 | 2:32.306 | Alex Martin |
| 8 | 6th | 2:29.427 | 2 | 2:34.897 | Adam Cianciarulo |
| 9 | 10th | 2:30.958 | 2 | 2:36.637 | Nick Gaines |
| 10 | 7th | 2:30.390 | 3 | 2:36.967 | RJ Hampshire |
Tomac vs Musquin Moto 1
When Eli Tomac got into second place on lap seven, he was about 22 seconds behind Marvin Musquin. On lap eight, Tomac was able to cut into the lead by five seconds to get the lead down to 17.
It looks like the time gained by Tomac on that lap can be attributed to a mistake made by Musquin, though. Taking a look at the individual lap times for Musquin, he ran a 2:31.183 on lap eight, which was about four seconds slower than his previous lap. The next three laps, Musquin went 2:28.777, 2:28.483, and 2:27.739. On a track as soft as Millville was, that amount of time can easily be lost by getting a poor drive going up a hill or cross rutting coming into a corner and losing all your momentum. Take a look at the gap between Tomac and Musquin for the entire race below.
J-Mart's Shortcut
There was a little bit of controversy in the second 250 moto. Early in the race Jeremy Martin went off the track and cut off a large section as he re-entered. He didn't gain any positions, but he also didn't lose any of the positions he would have lost if he had re-entered at the same place he left the track.
I decided to see how much time J-Mart saved with his shortcut, and after timing a couple different laps with my phone, and then overlaying a timer on the lap before his mistake, he ended up saving about 12 seconds.
The Whoops
It's easy to forget how important and how long the sand whoops are at Millville because they've been around for so long and the riders can get through them so quickly. With the help of Google Maps' measuring tool I was able to put the sand whoops into perspective and provide you guys with some numbers. (Note: this scan of the track was taken before the new turn was added after the whoops. The actual whoops weren't any shorter or longer, though)
Millville is about 1.19 miles long, or 6,283 feet. The whoops measure out to about 900 feet in length when you include both sides. In the end, about 14 percent of the track is made up of nasty sand whoops that pound the riders lap after lap. Getting through this section efficiently plays a huge part in being able to stay fresh at the end of a hot summer day in southern Minnesota.
