The 250SX East Region kicked off in Arlington last Saturday, and let’s just say it got wild—quickly. A huge first-turn crash took out a majority of the contenders, and Zach Osborne began his title defense with a win.

In the 450 main event, it was all Eli Tomac all day long. The Monster Energy Kawasaki rider dominated practice, his heat, and the main event. The victory was his third on the year.

Let’s dive into the lap data from Arlington 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.

450SX Class — Main Event — Lap Times

Lap Rank	Finish	Best Lap	On Lap	Avg Lap Time	Rider
1	1	49.250	3	50.662	Eli Tomac
2	4	49.419	3	50.800	Jason Anderson
3	3	49.904	18	50.938	Blake Baggett
4	2	49.943	18	50.783	Marvin Musquin
5	5	50.406	7	51.146	Cole Seely
6	6	50.458	7	51.178	Cooper Webb
7	7	50.685	8	51.716	Weston Peick
8	12	50.843	9	52.241	Vince Friese
9	9	50.942	19	52.247	Broc Tickle
10	11	50.996	6	52.720	Malcolm Stewart
11	8	51.091	15	52.092	Dean Wilson
12	10	51.094	14	52.233	Justin Brayton
13	14	51.360	4	53.034	Benny Bloss
14	13	51.361	5	52.892	Kyle Chisholm
15	19	51.697	5	53.206	Kyle Cunningham
16	16	52.074	9	54.061	Tyler Bowers
17	15	52.256	20	53.238	Chad Reed
18	17	52.380	5	54.124	Ben LaMay
19	20	52.392	5	55.948	Austin Politelli
20	18	52.567	5	54.497	Cole Martinez
21	22	52.927	3	54.710	Henry Miller
22	21	53.646	8	56.012	AJ Catanzaro

250SX Class — Main Event — Lap Times

Lap Rank	Finish	Best Lap	On Lap	Avg Lap Time	Rider
1	1	50.949	9	52.133	Zach Osborne
2	6	51.267	18	52.136	Jordon Smith
3	13	51.294	5	52.930	Cameron McAdoo
4	5	51.392	6	52.243	Jeremy Martin
5	2	51.414	7	52.254	Colt Nichols
6	7	51.777	4	52.949	Austin Forkner
7	4	51.803	12	52.470	RJ Hampshire
8	3	51.930	7	52.622	Jimmy Decotis
9	9	52.133	3	53.243	Luke Renzland
10	15	52.193	3	53.374	Kyle Peters
11	9	52.224	3	53.332	Sean Cantrell
12	19	52.727	9	53.643	Brandon Hartranft
13	12	52.792	4	54.079	Nick Gaines
14	18	53.160	7	55.024	Dylan Ferrandis
15	11	53.187	3	54.149	Lorenzo Lucurcio
16	10	53.218	5	54.420	John Short
17	21	53.940	2	58.189	Anthony Rodriguez
18	14	54.077	3	55.366	Cody Vanbuskirk
19	17	54.772	3	57.781	Jayce Pennington
20	16	55.414	7	57.484	Callen Tennant
21	20	56.065	5	1:00.704	Josh Osby
22	22	DNF	DNF	DNF	Martin Davalos

Osborne vs. Hampshire

Although he led 13 laps of the opening round of the 250SX East Region main event at Arlington, GEICO Honda’s RJ Hampshire said he rode “sloppy” all day long. 

“I didn’t realize I could win it until…. Well, dude, I was riding so bad all day,” he told Racer X after the race. “Making too many mistakes. I shouldn’t have been leading the main event. I holeshotted and even the second lap, I almost endoed off a dragon’s back, had to roll the whole section. Messed up in the whoops. Was just riding like a squirrel. It was just sloppy.”

If you look at a side-by-side comparison of Hampshire’s lap times to eventual winner Zach Osborne's, you can spot a few laps where Osborne was eating up a lot of the deficit, mainly on lap nine, where Osborne gained nearly a full second.

Lap	Zach Osborne	RJ Hampshire
2	51.993	53.86
3	54.745	51.885
4	52.352	52.248
5	51.247	52.138
6	51.439	52.123
7	51.543	51.947
8	52.278	51.929
9	50.949	51.816
10	51.314	52.465
11	51.635	51.805
12	51.353	51.803
13	51.913	52.505
14	52.68	1.02.871
15	52.172	54.182
16	52.184	52.766
17	52.063	52.592
18	52.438	52.595
19	54.098	53.346

Tickle Coming Through Traffic

A ninth-place finish certainly won’t make Broc Tickle happy, but after going down early in the race, Tickle put in very consistent lap times—all while coming through traffic. Tickle even said in a team statement after the race that it was the best main event riding he’s had all season. 

“I knew the track was going to be tough tonight and I’m normally really good in those conditions, so I kind of relied on knowing that. I tried to put myself in a good place on the start—especially after watching the 250 start—but I got hit from one side and the holeshot device was locked down so it made me knife the front and I fell over. I came from last to ninth and I was trying to make a pass on Dean (Wilson), but couldn’t make it happen and knifed the front and fell by myself. Overall, it’s the best main event riding I’ve had all season.

Check out his times from Arlington below.

Lap	Lap Times
2	51.79
3	51.822
4	52.103
5	51.893
6	51.391
7	51.4
8	51.212
9	51.072
10	51.594
11	51.308
12	51.186
13	51.347
14	51.008
15	51.381
16	51.79
17	52.312
18	51.428
19	50.942
20	52.046
21	51.964
22	59.618
23	53.461
24	53.645
25	56.229