The final round of the 2017 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship received an extra bit of excitement with the addition of current MXGP competitor Jeffrey Herlings who decided to race the Ironman National at the last minute.
Herlings and Marvin Musquin battled for the win in both motos, but Herlings came out on top for a dominating day complete with 1-1 scores. While those two were up front, Eli Tomac went into full-on management mode and wrapped up the 450 Class championship with 5-6 moto scores.
In the 250 Class, Zach Osborne put the final stamp on his 250MX championship by going 1-1 in what will likely be the last 250MX race of his career as he's slated to move up to the 450MX in 2018.
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 | 2nd | 2:07.724 | 6 | 2:10.376 | Marvin Musquin |
| 2 | 1st | 2:08.310 | 4 | 2:10.045 | Jeffrey Herlings |
| 3 | 3rd | 2:08.659 | 6 | 2:11.785 | Blake Baggett |
| 4 | 4th | 2:10.277 | 6 | 2:12.364 | Cole Seely |
| 5 | 5th | 2:10.363 | 7 | 2:13.400 | Eli Tomac |
| 6 | 8th | 2:12.161 | 3 | 2:13.985 | Benny Bloss |
| 7 | 6th | 2:12.376 | 8 | 2:13.735 | Cooper Webb |
| 8 | 7th | 2:12.452 | 6 | 2:13.911 | Weston Peick |
| 9 | 10th | 2:12.488 | 5 | 2:14.645 | Justin Barcia |
| 10 | 9th | 2:12.579 | 6 | 2:14.289 | Christian Craig |
450 MOTO 2
| LAP RANK | FINISH | BEST LAP | ON LAP | AVG LAP TIME | RIDER |
| 1 | 1st | 2:08.295 | 14 | 2:09.760 | Jeffrey Herlings |
| 2 | 2nd | 2:08.859 | 6 | 2:10.998 | Marvin Musquin |
| 3 | 3rd | 2:09.235 | 6 | 2:11.954 | Blake Baggett |
| 4 | 4th | 2:11.190 | 6 | 2:13.986 | Cole Seely |
| 5 | 6th | 2:11.938 | 7 | 2:14.074 | Eli Tomac |
| 6 | 9th | 2:12.436 | 3 | 2:15.808 | Justin Bogle |
| 7 | 28th | 2:12.503 | 8 | 2:16.958 | Benny Bloss |
| 8 | 10th | 2:12.755 | 6 | 2:16.125 | Dean Wilson |
| 9 | 5th | 2:12.861 | 3 | 2:14.215 | Cooper Webb |
| 10 | 8th | 2:12.911 | 6 | 2:14.507 | Weston Peick |
250 MOTO 1
| LAP RANK | FINISH | BEST LAP | ON LAP | AVG LAP TIME | RIDER |
| 1 | 1st | 2:09.624 | 3 | 2:11.982 | Zach Osborne |
| 2 | 2nd | 2:09.970 | 3 | 2:12.669 | Adam Cianciarulo |
| 3 | 10th | 2:10.378 | 3 | 2:13.845 | Chase Sexton |
| 4 | 6th | 2:11.209 | 2 | 2:14.937 | Sean Cantrell |
| 5 | 5th | 2:11.845 | 2 | 2:14.621 | Mitchell Harrison |
| 6 | 4th | 2:11.915 | 7 | 2:14.158 | Aaron Plessinger |
| 7 | 7th | 2:12.123 | 4 | 2:15.310 | Bradley Taft |
| 8 | 3rd | 2:12.215 | 6 | 2:13.443 | Colt Nichols |
| 9 | 12th | 2:12.540 | 10 | 2:15.379 | RJ Hampshire |
| 10 | 16th | 2:12.821 | 8 | 2:16.509 | Justin Cooper |
250 MOTO 2
| LAP RANK | FINISH | BEST LAP | ON LAP | AVG LAP TIME | RIDER |
| 1 | 1st | 2:10.145 | 3 | 2:13.482 | Zach Osborne |
| 2 | 40th | 2:12.195 | 2 | 2:12.195 | Aaron Plessinger |
| 3 | 5th | 2:12.510 | 10 | 2:15.415 | RJ Hampshire |
| 4 | 3rd | 2:12.649 | 8 | 2:14.143 | Jeremy Martin |
| 5 | 4th | 2:12.775 | 9 | 2:14.137 | Colt Nichols |
| 6 | 2nd | 2:12.822 | 4 | 2:14.050 | Adam Cianciarulo |
| 7 | 6th | 2:13.004 | 6 | 2:15.831 | Chase Sexton |
| 8 | 7th | 2:14.085 | 4 | 2:15.996 | Justin Cooper |
| 9 | 9th | 2:14.856 | 4 | 2:16.159 | Justin Hill |
| 10 | 14th | 2:15.110 | 3 | 2:19.181 | Kyle Cunningham |
Herlings' Comeback
We've covered Herlings' second moto charge quite a bit on this site, so I won't go into too much detail. Long story short, he fell on the opening lap and had to come from near dead last all the way into the lead after Musquin made a mistake with two laps to go.
Below is Herlings' gap to Musquin for the entire race. You can see on lap seven he still trailed Musquin by just over 18 seconds.
My boss Davey Coombs even documented the gap on lap three when it was just over 18 seconds as well.
Here are both Herlings' and Musquin's lap times for the entire moto. Their fastest laps are highlighted with some dashes around the outside of the square.
Noren's Data
I got the chance to shadow Fredrik Noren this past weekend for a video we are doing, and he happened to be riding with a LitPro on his helmet for the practice sessions and first moto. Noren was kind enough to share his data with us so you guys get a glimpse of what some of the pros use to help improve their times at the track. Unfortunately, Noren wasn't wearing a heart rate monitor during the race so we don't have that information, but there's still some cool stuff! [Note: Ignore the title of the session, this is data is from the first moto.]
Start Summary
Race Summary
Lap-by-Lap Summary
Tomac's Championship
After the races were finished on Saturday one of the big talking points at the track was the amount of points Tomac had scored in the championship this year. It's the lowest amount any 450 Class champion has scored since Grant Langston in 2007. Chad Reed's 2009 campaign was also very close to Tomac's total.
Although Tomac's season may have had its fair share of ups and downs, he actually had the lowest average moto finish compared to Reed and Langston. Reed, despite having the most moto wins and points of the three, actually had the worst average moto finish due to two bad motos in the final two rounds where he finished outside of the top 20.
And don't think Tomac's relatively low points total is knock on his championship, he still scored more than any other rider this season and that's what really matters.
| Eli Tomac 2017 | Chad Reed 2009 | Grant Langston 2007 | |
| Total Points | 470 | 481 | 439 |
| Moto Wins | 9 | 10 | 4 |
| Avg Finish | 4 | 4.91 | 4.41 |
