What a race! The Oakland SX brought the action for the second straight year, and we'd have to think the gnarly, chewed up, rutted track conditions have something to do with that. Last year, Eli Tomac pulled off an epic comeback to track down Ryan Dungey for the win late in the race, and this year Cole Seely, Ken Roczen and Jason Anderson took turns leading. Roczen appeared to have it under control, but the track struck and Kenny made a mistake that allowed Anderson to catch him. That set up a fantastic duel over the final two laps, with Anderson pulling out a clutch win.

The tough track will be a theme of this week's Sign of the (Lap) Times, as we have several ways to illustrate that. But first, let's start with our traditional lap time charts.

450SX Class — Main Event — Lap Times

Lap Rank	Finish	Best Lap	On Lap	Avg Lap Time	Rider
1	1st	50.930	5	52.664	Jason Anderson
2	6th	51.083	6	53.298	Cole Seely
3	3rd	51.154	6	53.076	Blake Baggett
4	2nd	51.239	5	52.809	Ken Roczen
5	4th	51.365	5	53.359	Marvin Musquin
6	5th	51.436	7	53.383	Justin Barcia
7	12th	52.170	4	54.155	Weston Peick
8	7th	52.202	7	53.697	Cooper Webb
9	9th	52.305	6	54.124	Justin Brayton
10	21st	52.347	6	54.394	Tyler Bowers
11	10th	52.374	7	54.589	Josh Grant
12	15th	52.683	4	55.339	Vince Friese
13	20th	52.758	5	55.275	Benny Bloss
14	8th	52.864	4	54.425	Broc Tickle
15	11th	53.172	8	55.122	Dean Wilson
16	14th	53.279	5	56.890	Chad Reed
17	13th	53.307	2	55.327	Eli Tomac
18	17th	53.577	8	56.506	Justin Bogle
19	18th	53.820	8	56.908	Kyle Cunningham
20	16th	54.860	6	57.432	Alex Ray
21	19th	54.705	7	58.298	Ben LaMay
22	22nd	DNF	DNF	DNF	Malcolm Stewart

250SX Class — Main Event — Lap Times

Lap Rank	Finish	Best Lap	On Lap	Avg Lap Time	Rider
1	4th	51.498	3	53.279	Christian Craig
2	1st	51.556	9	52.870	Aaron Plessinger
3	2nd	51.987	3	53.016	Joey Savatgy
4	7th	52.010	3	53.059	Adam Cianciarulo
5	15th	52.060	3	53.581	Shane McElrath
6	6th	52.070	8	53.684	Chase Sexton
7	3rd	52.204	10	52.956	Justin Hill
8	5th	52.468	5	54.085	Alex Martin
9	10th	52.629	6	54.746	Hayden Mellross
10	9th	52.774	6	54.597	Mitchell Harrison
11	8th	53.102	2	54.472	Kyle Chisholm
12	11th	54.120	2	56.297	Justin Hoeft
13	16th	54.196	3	58.436	Cole Martinez
14	17th	54.493	3	58.224	Ryan Breece
15	12th	54.747	3	56.948	Jean Carlo Ramos
16	13th	55.303	3	56.973	Justin Starling
17	14th	55.340	9	57.866	Martin Castelo
18	19th	55.661	3	58.143	Chase Marquier
19	18th	57.086	5	1:01.143	Julio Zambrano
20	20th	DNF	DNF	DNF	Dakota Alix
21	21st	DNF	DNF	DNF	Killian Auberson
22	22nd	DNF	DNF	DNF	Phil Nicoletti

Roczen vs. Anderson

Now, onto that Roczen and Anderson battle. Watching two supercross superstars fight for the win on the final two laps is all too rare. What's interesting is to see the impact that battle had on lap times. While Roczen and Anderson were no doubt pushing to their limits on the final laps, they were also making mistakes, passing each other and slowing each other down.

Have a look at the lap charts below, specifically on laps 21, 22 and 23. Anderson was running a strong, consistent pace, but his times slowed up significantly when the battle began. Same for Roczen, who is probably losing some sleep thinking about those final final laps.

Also, check out Anderson versus Roczen on laps 23 and 24. That's getting it done under pressure.

Tricky Track

Last week's track in Glendale was challenging, but Oakland was next level. Let's compare the lap time consistency of the race winner for the last two weeks.

The difference between Anderson's best and worst times at Oakland was 4.45 seconds. The difference between Eli Tomac's best and worst times at Glendale was 2.682 seconds. This data gets slightly skewed because Tomac holeshot the Glendale main event, so he got to run on clean race track, while Anderson spent much of Oakland battling through traffic. Still, the charts tell a story. There are larger variations in Anderson's times on the tricky Oakland track in comparison to Tomac's night leading in Glendale.

Anderson's Oakland Lap Times

Anderson was all over the map while battling traffic and ruts.

Tomac's Glendale Times

Tomac's times from Glendale show some variation, but far less than Anderson in Oakland.

The Deficit

Oakland was not kind to Tomac this time, as his 13th-place finish stopped the momentum of back-to-back wins in Anaheim 2 and Glendale. After failing to finish Anaheim 1 and not racing in Houston, Tomac's title hopes were slim anyway, but now things are even darker.

Last year Tomac pulled off an amazing comeback and was actually able to wrestle the points lead away from Ryan Dungey at one point. This year's comeback would be far, far crazier. Here's Tomac's points deficit after round five for both 2017 and 2018.