The big winner may have been Eli Tomac, who extends his championship lead out to six points, but the big loser was Roczen. After the contact with Anderson in the sand, Roczen watched as a lot of the field went by before he remounted in 13^th, but he would need to stop again after the whoops to try to remove sand from his goggles. Roczen now drops down to ninth in the standings and 23 points out of the lead. The hole is going to be big for Roczen to dig out of in the coming weeks as he has now had three rounds in a row where he ended up on the ground at one point.

On the flipside of the contact, Jason Anderson was able to follow Eli Tomac home tonight to finish second in the race and move all the way up to third in the championship. Anderson sits eight points off the lead and despite not winning tonight nor having the red plate, he’s arguably been the best rider through the first four rounds. Now with a couple solid results in his back pocket, Anderson appears to be ready to lock in for a 2022 title run. Even so, he was disappointed in the contact with Roczen and owned up to the situation being his fault post-race.

“I went on the inside of him in the sand, I went for it, and it ended up not so well,” said Anderson. “I don’t want to be that guy, but tonight I was that guy. I need to maybe not look at Instagram so much, because we’re gonna get some heat.”

The good news for Anderson is that contact with Roczen aside, he’s right in the thick of this championship and finally had another good night results wise to really get the ball rolling. His speed has been there, and it seems like he’s building in the right direction. So much so, he feels he can turn it on when he needs to.

“To be honest, all day, I didn’t feel like I was on it, but then for a few laps in the main I felt like I was on it,” said Anderson. “The whoops, it didn’t feel like a full whoop section but more like a rhythm. I was just missing the lines. The track had edges and you bike could go either way, and that happened in the heat race. The track was just sneaky that way.”

Another title contender we fully expected to be part of the three headed trio this year along with Ken Roczen and Eli Tomac was defending champion Cooper Webb. Webb was able to bring home eighth on the night after a tip over while he was battling with Justin Barcia for seventh. Webb now slips from second to fourth in the championship but he’s in a better position than Roczen through four rounds as he only sits 12 points back of Eli Tomac. Webb looks like he’s not quite gelling with his new KTM fully just yet and some of the problems are stemming from the whoops, but he also doesn’t seem as comfortable in the turns either. He and the team have a lot of stuff to figure out over the next couple of weeks to hopefully dial it in before we head east.

Speaking of dialed in, Chase Sexton has been the epitome of dialed in after a few setup changes drastically improved his consistency heading into San Diego. Anaheim 2 was perhaps more of the new Sexton where he was very fast and smooth all day and there weren’t any real problems to talk about. He sort of took a quiet third on the night as he just let things fall his way throughout the main event and now, he slots into second alone in the championship, just six points back of Tomac.

“This has always been a dream and a position that I’ve wanted to be in,” said Sexton. “Last year was a struggle for me, but this year I feel like a whole different rider. I didn’t feel that great out there honestly, but I felt like we were all getting sketchy in the whoops, and I was just trying to manage. It was a good race and the two guys in front of me were going really fast.”

So where do we go from here? Well, now Eli Tomac not only has the championship lead the earliest he’s ever had it, he also is still getting better and that could be a scary prospect for the rest of the field. The problem for everyone is we have the first Triple Crown race coming up next week at Glendale. With shorter races on an always interesting Glendale track, some riders who are now on the back foot will likely be taking a few more extra chances to make the difference moving forward. The good news for Eli Tomac is that Glendale has treated him well in the past and he’ll be hoping for more of the same out of round five next week.

Moving onto the 250SX class, last week finally saw a different winner atop the podium as Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GasGas rider Michael Mosiman claimed his first career 250SX main event victory in San Diego. The win came along with a crash in the first turn that took down championship leader Christian Craig in the process. Craig, who would remount in 21^st, incredibly charged all the way back to third by the end of the race and was able to salvage the points lead as well.

Second in the standings entering round four was Honda HRC’s Hunter Lawrence. The Australian had been left frustrated at each of the first three rounds in what he described as races that he felt he could win. The speed has been there for him, but bad starts coupled with some late race mistakes had cost him so far through three rounds.

As we pivoted into round four of the championship, each of the three top title contenders had something that left them hungry. For Craig, he was motivated to get back onto the top step, and that motivation was added onto when Craig suffered a violent crash in press day on Friday. The Monster Energy/Star Yamaha Racing rider got the long rhythm section wrong and went flying into the nets in the bowl berm at the end of the section. Fortunately, Craig would be okay, but he now had another chip on his shoulder to show the crash was a freak deal and wouldn’t affect him.

As the main event kicked off for the 250SX class, it was Vince Friese who grabbed the holeshot, but Mosiman made sure to make quick work of the veteran unlike in their heat race. Mosiman snagged the lead on the third lap of the race and appeared to do so in an effort to pull a gap on Craig before he could get into second. It didn’t matter though as Craig made it by Friese just two laps later and was on Mosiman for the lead two laps after that.

What happened next was a titanic battle between Craig and Mosiman. Most of it really centered around some cat and mouse where Craig would reel Mosiman in a bit but then Mosiman would stretch it back out and maintain the lead. Finally, Craig was able to take advantage of a mistake from Mosiman in the sand turn to take over the lead.

Mosiman fought back into the next turn, but Craig held the lead and quickly worked out a small gap at the front. Despite his best efforts late, Mosiman just couldn’t quite get back to Craig and make a run for the lead. When the checkered flag waved, Christian Craig had his third win in four rounds to start the season and extended his points lead on top of it.

“That was so much fun!” Craig said after the race. “The battle with Michael, I’ve never done that before. So, yeah, it’s going to be a fun season. I got off to a decent start, obviously me and Michael battled it out for what felt like a long time. I heard the crowd every time I got close, and I made the pass stick, and I tried to ride away with it. This was a lot of fun tonight, especially after yesterday with my crash at press day, I’ve just kind of overcome a lot.”

The sentiments of enjoyment out of the race were echoed by Mosiman as well. The fight was a good hard battle, but fair all the way through. Neither rider forced contact and it was a clean race. In the case of Mosiman, he certainly would have liked to end it on top or at least gotten close enough in the end to make a run, but it just wouldn’t materialized. Still though, on the heels of his first career victory, Mosiman led over half the main event in Anaheim and is starting to learn valuable lessons about what it takes to finish these races off on top.

“I’m stoked to be here!” said Mosiman. “It’s not too often that these things happen and when they do, I’m just going to enjoy it. Such a good race with Christian, he’s riding so good – I learned a thing or two from him and I think he learned a thing or two from me. We had clean racing out there and it was an absolute blast! I’m going to enjoy it tonight and work on some things. I look forward to challenging him all year and see if we can get some more wins.”

Behind the great battle out front, some carnage ensued in the battle for third late in the race. Vince Friese was holding on strong for what would have been a huge podium for he and the SmarTop/BullFrog Spas/MotoConcepts program. With just a few laps left in the race, Friese made a small bobble in the whoops with Hunter Lawrence and Jo Shimoda right behind him. Friese hit the dirt and was lucky not to be hit by Lawrence who narrowly avoided him, but he was not as lucky with Shimoda. The Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki rider caught the side of Friese’ helmet twice as he went by, and the contact was enough to send Shimoda off the track as well and stall the bike. Friese would not finish the race unfortunately as it looked like he was dealing with some pain in his chest or shoulder, while Shimoda continued on to finish seventh.

Lost in all that madness, Hunter Lawrence had squeaked by into third place where he would remain for the rest of the race. It was an off day for the Honda HRC man who never really seemed to get the ball rolling in qualifying, the heat race, nor the main event. Still though, he rounded out the podium and picked up some valuable championship points on what seemed to be an off night for him.

“It just wasn’t my night,” said Lawrence. “The boys rode well. It was tough. I didn’t get the best start. But I mean it’s always an honor to race in Anaheim. Watching it on TV, all the fans back in the house, it’s unreal… We’ll live to fight another day so it’s all good.”

Craig’s championship lead now extends to 11 over Lawrence and 14 over Mosiman, but both remain right in the mix ready to pounce if anything goes wrong with Craig. These next two rounds in Glendale and back in Anaheim again for A3 will also be critical in the 250SX class as each of these riders look to finish off strong heading into the big east coast break.

Will this top three trio continue to find themselves on the podium? Well, that Triple Crown in Glendale next week might be the fork that gets thrown into the plans for each of these guys. It will be interesting to see who stays consistent and who struggles with the format in a week’s time, and we’ll look forward to seeing you there as well. So long from Anaheim!