Qualifying – Session One

Right now the track is fantastic, and doesn’t even remotely resemble the soft and muddy racing surface of yesterday. There’s even dust in a few places! The rain will likely fall early this afternoon, but if it doesn’t the riders will have a great track to race on. The layout itself is pretty much the same has Hangtown always is. The track winds up and down Hangtown’s hills, the half-pipe is where it always is, and the big Fly triple jump (which is more like an uphill tabletop) is back again. They put in some whoops before the Fly triple, and riders who weren’t getting through them cleanly weren’t able to clear the whole jump. 

In the 250 Class Garrett Marchbanks threw down a blazing lap early and never looked back as he secured the fastest time of the session. Dylan Ferrandis, fresh on the heels of his Monster Energy 250SX West Supercross Championship, was only about a tenth off Marchbanks’ pace.

In 450 action it was Ken Roczen topping the class in the first session, but reigning champ Eli Tomac was right on him. Zach Osborne, who’s making his 450 motocross debut, was sixth fastest, just in front of Jason Anderson, who's coming off the sidelines after getting hurt early during the supercross season. If you’re looking for a two-stroke rider to cheer for, Chris Alldredge is racing a 250 in the 450 Class and Gared Steinke is aboard a 125 in the 250 Class.

Qualifying – Session Two

If you were watching Jordan Bailey and Justin Cooper at the start of the second 250 qualifier you might have mistaken it for an actual moto. The two got out front right away and proceeded to sprint, with Bailey leading. It didn’t take Cooper long to get right on Bailey’s tail though and when he did, he started applying pressure usually reserved for actual races. Bailey was game too, and put his head down and withstood the onslaught for a about a lap. When Cooper eventually did get by him, Bailey immediately tried to get the spot back! Things settled down after that, but whenever that level of intensity is on display during qualifying it bodes well for the motos.

As far as lap times go, they were slower than the first session due to a track that’d broken down quite a bit and had gotten substantially rougher. Dylan Ferrandis was fastest in this one, but his best time, a 2:18.086, wasn’t enough to topple Garrett Marchbanks’ 2:15.455 from the first session. When 250 qualifying ended, Marchbanks described the track as much rougher and ruttier, and said that it had gotten more technical.

When the 450s headed out it looked like we might see more battling. Eli Tomac, Justin Barcia, Blake Baggett, and Zach Osborne all shot off the gate and stayed close as the second qualifier got underway. It lacked the intensity of the Bailey and Cooper scrap though, and nobody seemed interested in staging a race before the actual race. Tomac, who swapped early and nearly crashed after his feet came off the pegs, busted out a fast one on lap three, but Ken Roczen topped it by less than half a second on the next lap. It ended up holding for the remainder of the session too, handing Roczen, who looked more like his smooth, speedy self, the fastest times in both qualifiers.

Jason Anderson looked like he was cruising for much of the session and scoping out the track, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t pull out the heat a few times. On lap four he logged a 2:19.647, which was good enough for fourth fastest. He went into attack mode on the final lap too, just hammering through the rough, but he wasn’t able to lower his time.

250 Moto One

Justin Cooper got the first race of the season underway by streaking out to the lead, but Adam Cianciarulo immediately latched on. The two didn’t waste time in pulling away from the pack, with Cooper maintaining roughly a second-and-a-half gap over Cianciarulo for the first half of the race. Behind them Chase Sexton was all by himself in third, Colt Nichols held fifth, and Michael Mosiman was holding down fifth in front of Dylan Ferrandis. It didn’t take long for Ferrandis to start pressuring Mosiman, but Mosiman held strong and refused to surrender the spot. As the race approached the halfway point the battle for fifth became a four-main affair, with Hunter Lawrence and RJ Hampshire joining the fray. It didn’t last long though—Ferrandis was finally able to get around Mosiman and sprint away, and Lawrence went down and took a footpeg to his leg/buttock. Lawrence was in obvious pain and it took him a few moments to rejoin the race. He was able to recover and get back to eleventh by race’s end.

In the second half of the race Cianciarulo ramped up the speed and tried to get around Cooper several times, but each time Cooper was able to withstand the pressure. As the race wore on Cooper was able to stretch it out a bit on Cianciarulo, who found himself in danger of being caught by Sexton and Ferrandis at the end. Cianciarulo was able to hang onto second, but Sexton lost third to a very hard-charging Ferrandis within yards of the finish line. After the race Cianciarulo said he struggled a bit with the ruts and experienced a bit of arm pump.

450 Moto One

Cooper Webb got the jump  in this one but an explosive Ken Roczen dispatched Justin Barcia for second and immediately reeled in Webb. As the two approached the whoops leading into the Fly triple jump Roczen set up a line, jumped by Webb through the whoops, and launched away with the lead. From that point it was over—Roczen checked out and won the moto by a huge margin.

Early in the race Eli Tomac, who’d started around ninth, was making moves and it didn’t take him long to get into fourth. He proceeded to catch Jason Anderson but wasn’t able to challenge him. The two battled as the rain started to come down, and a move from Tomac seemed like it could come at any moment. Finally, Tomac sliced to the inside of Anderson in a left-hander after the finish line. But Anderson refused to roll over and took the spot back a few turns later. Tomac then inexplicably started losing touch with Anderson, and it wasn’t long before Anderson had dropped him. Zach Osborne caught and passed Tomac next, but would hand the spot back at the end of the race when he went down. Anderson went after Webb, who’d spent most of the race all by himself in second. The two battled as the rain increased slightly, and when Webb made a slight mistake in a left-corner Anderson seized the opportunity and took off with the spot. Roczen won, followed by Anderson, Webb, Tomac, and Osborne.

250 Moto Two

After watching Justin Cooper get away with the win in the first moto, Adam Cianciarulo wasn’t about to let it happen again in the second. When the gate dropped Cianciarulo rocketed out of the gate, nabbed the holeshot, and set sail, winning the moto by over sixteen seconds. Behind him there was plenty of action as Cooper was working hard to overcome a mediocre start in the mud. Alex Martin was on the move too, and before long he’d taken over third. Dylan Ferrandis was having a good race too, and was all over Martin for quite a while. After what probably seemed like an eternity for both riders, Ferrandis forced his front wheel inside Martin in a downhill section and pushed him wide in the ensuing corner. Unfazed, Martin retaliated and accelerated right back past Ferrandis in the next section. From that point Martin had the upper hand and was able to slowly get away from Ferrandis. Before long Ferrandis had completely lost touch with Martin and ended up getting passed by Cooper at the end of the race. In front of them, meanwhile, Martin had caught and passed Colt Nichols for second. Nichols kept him honest for most of the second half, but Martin was eventually able to scrape together a bit of breathing room and ended up in second place.

The rain continued to fall throughout this moto, and while it wasn’t an absolute downpour, it was pretty steady, which made the track quite slick. Many of the riders ditched their goggles, and one of the downhill sections was so slick and gooey the riders almost looked like they were tiptoeing down. The rain hasn’t let up either, so expect the second 450 moto to be interesting!

450 Moto Two

Marvin Musquin jumped out to the early lead in the final moto of the day, but Eli Tomac didn’t approve and decided to take the lead by blitzing by in a slick downhill section. Ken Roczen then went by Musquin and went after Tomac. When Tomac opted not to launch the big Fly triple, Roczen pulled the trigger and sailed by. Roczen started stretching it out slightly, but after Tomac found his flow he reeled Roczen back in and retook the lead. There would be no stopping Tomac this time, and the Monster Energy Kawasaki rider checked out for the win.

Behind him there wasn’t a whole lot of battling happening. Roczen was all by himself in second, Anderson was in a lonely third, and Musquin held down fourth. Justin Barcia, who was in fifth, was slamming his way around the track, even finding the rev limiter in places despite they ultra-slick conditions.

As the race entered the second half it became apparent that Zach Osborne, who’d gone down on the first lap, was the rider to watch. His lap times were much lower than almost everyone else and he was picking off riders like a carnival game hustler. He also had some help as he went through the pack when Anderson tipped over. On the final lap Osborne was right on Musquin’s exhaust pipe and when Osborne went inside Musquin, Musquin bobbled and stalled the bike, allowing Osborne to lock up third place in the moto.

This wasn’t the muddiest moto in Hangtown’s history, but it was still pretty wet and slick, thanks to a steady rain that started during the first 450 moto and never let up. It nearly claimed Tomac in the second moto too, when he made a mistake and just about came completely off the bike. Roczen had a little moment too, nearly tipping all the way over after the halfpipe, but was able to prevent total disaster.