First Practice

Jo Shimoda looked determined in the first “free” practice by jumping out ahead of the field and also ahead on the lap charts. His lap held and never came off the top of the board. Somehow Shimoda still doesn’t have a podium this year, it appears he’s ready to end that tonight. Hunter Lawrence was second best. Christian Craig was the only 250 rider we saw go all the way over the tabletop on the first rhythm lane, but he actually didn’t turn in some burner laps, and then one lap when he was flying, the lap had to be slowed due to a yellow flag.

Shane McElrath and Cooper Webb practically had a battle for the lead at the start of this practice. McElrath stood Webb up in the first turn and then took a line on the inside of him in the next two turns. Webb kept charging and logged the first top time of the session. Eli Tomac then lit the place on fire, looking amazing and then uncorking the 4-4 in the first rhythm lane. We didn’t see any other rider do it. Tomac’s 1:03 was the top time by .3 seconds over Jason Anderson. Roczen, Ferrandis and Musquin rounded out the top five. Despite Webb’s fire at the start of the session, he only ended up ninth quickest, and 1.3 seconds off of Tomac.

We know the KTM group is working hard to address some issues with the bike, and perhaps that’s why Webb was pushing so hard to test his machine early. Check out Kellen Brauer’s video below for more with Webb, Aaron Plessinger and Marvin Musquin.

Second Practice

In the 250s, Christian Craig was only third in the first session today, he was out for revenge in this one. He had early fast laps and looked good, but then Hunter Lawrence struck late to edge him by .3 seconds. Hunter was very fast in San Diego, a little off last weekend in Anaheim, and then is back to the front today. Also, it’s worth noting that Craig’s biggest advantage this year (and more years) is in the whoops, but today the whoops aren’t a big place to gain separation. Lawrence is looking good and aiming for his first race of the year.

“I felt good but I think I have more,” said Lawrence. “There were a few sections I think I can clean up and get in a good lap time. I’m going to go back and talk to the team and see if we can squeeze in a little bit more.”

Jason Anderson was first out on track and also logged the first top time. Then he handled the quad-quad in the first rhythm. That section is now completely unlocked, as about seven other guys did it, such as Dylan Ferrandis, Justin Barcia, and Justin Bogle. Later in the session it became another big show for the Yamaha boys as Tomac and Ferrandis ran to the front. Tomac was tops with Ferrandis rigt behind him. Tomac is not only fast, he seems exceedingly happy with his life right now. He was beaming during is interview on Race Day Live.

“At this point just keep with what we’ve got going on,” Tomac said after. “Feeling pretty good again, was able to get the big rhythms early on. And the sand. The sand is pretty cool at this stadium. That was fun. I’m just having a good time.”

Stewart, Roczen and Anderson rounded out the top five.

Final Practice

Christian Craig was fast immediately in this final 250 seeded session, sitting on top of the board, but he wasn’t as quick as the time Lawrence threw down in the previous session. Lawrence missed a whoop with his front wheel and nearly went down. It was an impressive save. Meanwhile Nate Thrasher jumped up to the top of the board! He backed it up with another solid lap. Shimoda, so fast early, nearly went down but saved it, he was only sitting in fifth. Thrasher’s time held on for tops overall, a first for him in his supercross career…no! Right at the end, at the very last lap, Hunter Lawrence grabbed the top time, making him tops overall. That’s Lawrence ahead in both sessions.

In the 450s, Aaron Plessinger won the fake start. Tomac and then Roczen jumped to the top of the board. Tomac took it back from Roczen to lead the field again. Then Anderson threw down a good lap to take top time. A lot of riders were doing the quad this time but the fastest three—Tomac, Ferrandis and Anderson, had it. Times kept shuffling as Ferrandis took top time and it held. Tomac was second, which makes for Yamaha 1-2s in both timed sessions today. By the way, Ferrandis is the fifth different rider to take the number one qualifying time in the 450 class this year!

Who Makes the Main?

A unique thing about the Triple Crown format is that the top 18 in qualifying make the mains automatically, and then the rest of the field heads into the LCQs for the final four spots. These LCQs take place during the daytime, not in the night show.

For qualifying, Dylan Walsh, Logan Karnow took the 17th and 18th spots in the 250s to go direct to the mains. Justin Bogle and Alex Martin were 17th and 18th in the 450s to get into the show. Then it comes to the LCQs for others. We'll cover them once the gates drop momentarily.

SX Futures

In the Supercross Futures Main Event, Ryder DiFrancesco pulled a monster jump put out of thecgate to get the holeshot, but Luke Kalaitzian was on the move early and challenged for the lead twice. Then he made the pass! DiFrancesco then got him back in the sand and over the tunnel jump to retake the lead. That was it. He took off from there and pulled a huge lead. Towers then passed Kalaitzian in the whoops, but Towers later nearly went down in the sand, saved it, and then lost the front end in a corner and crashed. This moved Kalaitzian back to second. Towers picked it back up and out dueled Brad West for the final podium spot.

DiFrancesco is now 3-0 in the SX Futures races this year.

250 LCQ

Geran Stapleton and Mitchell Harrison battled for the lead early in this one, with Harrison locking the lead down. Colby Copp started making moves toward Stapleton, and Devin Harriman was in the battle, too, until he got bucked in the whoops and then went flying over a berm. This let Hunter Schlosser into fourth. Schlosser made a pass in a rhythm lane to get into third over Copp, and then Copp, although he was still in a transfer spot, made a huge block pass on Schlosser that took them both down! This moved McClellan Hile and Wyatt Lyonsmith into the final two spots. Classic crazy LCQ action.

450 LCQ

In the 450 LCQ, well, are you surprised? Kyle Chisholm got the early lead and easy win. Chiz is gonna Chiz, people. Behind him Nick Schmidt started fast but faded back, and Freddie Noren got to second. Ryan Breece followed him through, then Cade Clason passed Schmidt to get the final spot to the main. Josh Hill had a terrible start and worked through for fifth, just short of the main.

250SX MAIN EVENT 1

Racing kicked off right away with the first 250SX main event. It was Vince Friese who grabbed the holeshot ahead of Nate Thrasher and Christian Craig. Craig wasted no time to go into the race lead as he quickly got around teammate Thrasher and then tripled by Friese in the long rhythm section.

Michael Mosiman fell in the first corner and way back in the back through the first couple of laps. Carson Mumford went down on the dragons back on the first lap of the race and would take a few laps before he was able to walk off the track with some help from the Alpinestars Medical crew.

Hunter Lawrence moved by Vince Friese into second place on lap three and Jo Shimoda and Nate Thrasher were working hard to also get around Friese. Shimoda was able to get around Friese while Thrasher then tipped over behind them and fell back to 10^th.

Vince Friese then pushed Shimoda off the track and got back into third place and as Shimoda worked on getting back around him, Shimoda also fell and went back to seventh spot. That promoted Jalek Swoll up to fourth and Garrett Marchbanks into the top five.

Marchbanks had terrific speed in the whoops and got around Swoll for fourth place with about three minutes to go in the main event. He then closed up to Friese for third and the battle was on the final podium spot as Swoll and then Shimoda remained lurking in the background.

Shimoda worked up to and around Swoll to get into fifth place on the final lap of the race. Swoll stayed right in behind and tried a last attempt to get fifth back at the flag, but Shimoda was able to hang on for the spot.

Up front, Christian Craig took the first main event win of the evening ahead of Hunter Lawrence who was a distant second place with Vince Friese hanging on for third.

450SX MAIN EVENT 1

Eli Tomac grabbed the holeshot in the first main event of the night for the 450SX class with Ken Roczen right behind him and Jason Anderson in third place. Tomac would lead the first lap as Anderson made a small mistake and nearly lost third place to Malcolm Stewart as Marvin Musquin also was right in the mix.

Chase Sexton made an early pass on Cooper Webb to get around the defending champion and move into sixth place behind Musquin. Stewart then made the move on Anderson to get into third place as the battle remained tight behind Tomac and Roczen who were starting to get away a little bit.

Sexton then moved around Musquin to get into fifth place and the pass created a little gap between himself and Anderson ahead in fourth place. Two laps later, Sexton tucked the front end through the first corner and slipped back to ninth behind Shane McElrath.

Stewart nearly went down when he lost the rear end exiting a corner and that allowed Anderson to sneak back up the inside and make it into third place. Anderson and Stewart both were staying right with Ken Roczen for second place, and they all weren’t too far back of Tomac out front.

Anderson made the pass stick on Roczen to get into second place and Malcolm Stewart didn’t want to lose touch with the #21 so he also passed Roczen just two corners later. They both were able to get away from the German rather quickly and begin battling with each other for second place.

Cooper Webb was struggling through the late stages of the race and lost positions to Justin Barcia and Dylan Ferrandis and lost a lot of time to them quickly. Ferrandis was working on making the pass on Barcia for sixth place with two laps to go.

Eli Tomac would hold on for the race victory ahead of Jason Anderson, Malcolm Stewart, Ken Roczen, and Marvin Musquin inside of the top five.

250SX MAIN EVENT 2

In the second main event of the night, it was Vince Friese who grabbed the holeshot, but Christian Craig quickly made the pass on him after Friese missed the main rhythm section. Friese then teed up Craig for the lead as they went into the sand section putting both of them on the ground with Craig being sent into the stadium wall.

Amazingly, Craig would be okay and remounted in dead last. Hunter Lawrence was then leading the race from Jalek Swoll, Jo Shimoda, Robbie Wageman, and Michael Mosiman. Craig made it back up to Vince Friese for position and made the pass on him to get into 12^th and immediately started pulling aweigh from him moving into the top 10 with four minutes to go.

Meanwhile, Shimoda made his way into second place around Swoll and Mosiman followed him through a lap later to get into third place. Craig’s charge continued as he was flying through the field to eighth and onto the back of his teammate Thrasher.

Mosiman slowly reeled in Lawrence for the race lead and the battle was suddenly on for the win with two laps to go. The white flag waved and Mosiman was working hard to get the lead away from Lawrence.

Mosiman nearly fell trying to get the lead away as he slid all the way through the first corner. Lawrence was able to hold on for the race victory with Mosiman right behind him in second place, Shimoda third, Craig made it all the way up to fourth, and Swoll rounded out the top five.

450SX MAIN EVENT 2

Eli Tomac grabbed yet another holeshot in the second main event with Jason Anderson, Marvin Musquin, Malcolm Stewart, and Cooper Webb rounding out the top five. Chase Sexton quickly worked his way around Webb as did his teammate Ken Roczen.

The top three started to pull away a little bit as Sexton went to work on Musquin for fourth place. Sexton made the pass stick just before the halfway mark as he then set sail after Stewart ahead of him.

Anderson had a fairly big one while running in second as he jumped into the Tuff Blocks in the long rhythm section. It took him a long time to get his bike unstuck from the Tuff Blocks and by the time he got going, he was down in 18^th spot.

That moved Stewart up to second place with Sexton now in third. Musquin had Roczen closing in on him for fourth with Ferrandis not too far behind in sixth making a late race push as we moved into the second half of the main event.

Musquin was able to open up a little breathing room over Roczen behind him and Ferrandis snuck up and pounced to move into fifth place. The rest of the race stayed status quo aside from Anderson making a great charge throughout the race to just get Justin Brayton for 12^th in the end.

Eli Tomac would dominate all the way through to take the second main event victory ahead of Stewart, Sexton, Musquin, and Ferrandis.

250SX MAIN EVENT 3

Christian Craig came out and holeshot the final main event after his eventful second main event and immediately opened up a gap out front. It was Vince Friese in second place with Hunter Lawrence in third, Jo Shimoda in fourth, and Mosiman rounding out the top five.

Lawrence was able to make a quick pass around Friese to get into second place while Shimoda and Mosiman closed right up to Friese for third. Shimoda took a while to figure out a way around Friese, but he made it happen around halfway and Mosiman was quick to follow.

The battle was on for third place while Hunter Lawrence in second place was in a position to win the overall event. Mosiman was all over Shimoda for third but started to make a couple mistakes and almost crashed in the whoops with about a minute left in the main event.

Then Mosiman had a big crash off the tunnel jump, and it pushed him all the way back to 15^th spot behind Chris Blose.

As the flag waved, Christian Craig was able to take the third main event victory, but it was Hunter Lawrence and his 2-1-2 scores who would claim his first victory of 2022. Lawrence would land on the top step of the podium with Craig second overall and Shimoda in third on the evening.