Saturday Night Live: Indianapolis

Behind them, Marvin Musquin was able to squeeze around Malcolm Stewart, which was for fourth, but with Anderson going down Musquin actually moved up to third. The field remained stagnant with still nearly nothing between them for the next seven or eight minutes or so before Eli Tomac started to close in on Barcia for the lead.

Barcia had a few struggles with lapped traffic and Tomac took the opportunity to pounce into the race lead. Barcia appeared to take a deep breath and try to close back in on Tomac, but the Yamaha man put on the afterburners and pulled away just enough.

Despite a late race mistake that saw him miss clearing a big double on the last lap, Tomac would hold on for his 43^rd career 450SX victory. The win extends Tomac’s championship lead out to 48 points as he closes up on a two-race lead in the championship and sits just one win behind Chad Reed for fourth all time.

“These tracks, they take patience,” said Tomac of the rutted conditions. “The west coast tracks you can go wide open, and you’re drifting around. Here there’s a fine line of how hard you can push it. I feel like on these tracks my heart rate is lower because you can’t be wide clide all the time.”

Barcia would hold on for second which is his second consecutive podium and yet another improvement this week. After Barcia suffered a hand injury in practice prior to the Detroit Supercross, he admitted that last weekend turned into a bit of a test session instead of focusing of hot lapping during qualifying. As such, Barcia made many improvements to bike setup that he felt would carry through the coming rounds.

Tonight proved that to be true and as the hand continues to heel, he’s now knocking on the door big time for his first win of 2022. The fight for second in the championship also remains close with Anderson’s sixth and Malcolm Stewart’s eighth on the evening. All in all, Barcia is right in the mix as we get into the thick of the second half of the season.

“I felt good tonight, we’re in a good spot,” said Barcia. “We found some good suspension settings that actually help out a lot with the starts as well. Less squatting front to rear. It’s a fine balance, you want the bike plush, but you want that hold up. Last few weeks my guys knocked it out of the park, and I think the rest of the season we’re in a good situation as far as bike setup.”

Rounding out the podium was Red Bull KTM’s Marvin Musquin who quietly found his way into the lead battle during the second half of the race. There was a point that he was actually putting some pressure on Tomac for second and appeared to have better lines, but as the track changed, Tomac found a couple areas that worked better, and he pulled out the advantage on Musquin behind him.

Still though, this was Marvin’s second podium of 2022 and of course the question begins getting asked as to if this is Marvin’s last year as a professional. Being on a supercross only deal, Musquin’s contract with Red Bull KTM is up at the beginning of May and it doesn’t appear like retirement is in the near future for the Frenchman.

“I really want to do good right now,” said Musquin. “I have not shown my potential this year and I’m not quite happy with my season. I want to be in the fight and that’s exactly what I did tonight. I was able to get Malcolm and I tried to push to get Justin. I earned my position tonight. We made some changes to the bike, and I was not very comfortable, but I made it happen when it counted.”

Behind them, a close battle to the line between Cooper Webb and Chase Sexton became the battle to watch in the closing laps. Webb gritting through a fractured bone in his hand saw déjà vu a bit from last week as he closed behind the man whom he crashed with and fractured his hand a week ago.

Webb put in a classic late race charge but would fall just short of P4 in the main event as Sexton held off the KTM man. For Sexton, it was a solid main event where he remained in the mix throughout the race. He fell off the lead three and into Webb’s clutches towards the end but ultimately hung on for that fourth spot.

Jason Anderson would come home in sixth and likely isn’t stoked on the contact with Justin Barcia, but it is a good rebound night from last week where he was battling for the win and still got solid points with sixth. We continue to await news on official results as well given that Justin Barcia was on probation prior to this round and the word is the AMA was going to speak with him after the press conferences wrapped up.

Lastly, Malcolm Stewart would end up coming home in eighth spot on the night after a big crash in the rhythm section after the whoops late in the race. Stewart was fortunate not to appear seriously injured after ruts caught him out as he went to triple in, and he went over the bars. Stewart would remount and finish behind teammate Dean Wilson in the main event, but ultimately would fall to fourth in the championship standings as he now sits 53 points behind Tomac.

In the 250SX class, Honda HRC’s Jett Lawrence was looking to keep the ball rolling on the heels of his third win of the season last weekend in Detroit. The 18-year-old was holding onto an eight-point championship lead over Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Cameron McAdoo in the standings while the two of them had opened up a sizable advantage on everyone else.

Going back to Detroit, McAdoo admitted that Lawrence was simply the better rider on the night but did say that his starts were the only thing still holding him back. He has shown the speed this year to be a race winner and Indianapolis presented an opportunity to stop the bleeding and keep Lawrence from pulling out to a double-digit points lead.

When the gates dropped in the main event, we were presented with the opportunity to see if McAdoo really did have the speed. Lawrence grabbed the holeshot, but McAdoo was right there ready to battle Lawrence for the main event victory.

It seemed like Lawrence might have held the early advantage, but McAdoo found some lines within the first few laps and closed right up on Lawrence for the lead. The battle was on as McAdoo made a quick pass only for Lawrence to get him right back.

One lap later, McAdoo made the pass for the lead stick right after the finish line jump. Lawrence then seemed to settle in behind McAdoo and study him for a few laps. When McAdoo was held up by some lapped traffic moments later, Lawrence pounced on the opportunity to go back into the race lead by the halfway point.

McAdoo worked hard to stick with him out front, but a few costly mistakes proved pivotal. Lawrence was able to work ahead to just enough of a gap that he managed to hold for the rest of the race to take it all the way home for his fourth victory of 2022.

“I sucked at the start [of the race],” said Lawrence. “Cameron was on a faster pace at the start, and I could feel him right there. It was pretty clear he was skimming the whoops, and I was scared right off the start, and I was jumping the whoops. It was fun, we raced clean, you never have to worry if he’s going to hit me or take me out. Cameron was riding so good, he caught me and gapped me out. I had to catch up so I would have some kind of chance. We both had some good luck and bad luck with lappers. The track was so rutted, we were following each other in turns because there was nowhere else to go.

McAdoo initially appeared quite disappointed with his rider after the race but eventually admitted that he can’t be too bummed about it. All in all, he did limit the damage on the evening again as he claimed his second consecutive second place finish.

He also did show that he has the pace to run with and even pass Lawrence given the opportunity. Heading into a break for the 250SX East series now as they will be off for the next couple weeks, McAdoo has the ability to reflect on his near miss tonight in Indianapolis.

“You can’t think about the win when you’re seven laps into a 22-lap main event,” said McAdoo. “Once he got by me, I stuck to the three out of the turn too many times, and I should have just raced the two. I tried it too many times and messed it up a few times. We got into lappers, and he did a little bit better job than me with that, but my goal was to be in the fight, and we did that.

Rounding out the podium on the evening was Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s RJ Hampshire. Hampshire spent most of the race hunting down Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GasGas rider Pierce Brown. The track seemed to dictate that race as well as it came down to who could limit the mistakes.

Brown had a couple close calls through the whoops that ultimately pushed Hampshire up to his back tire and Hampshire completed the pass for third place just after the halfway point of the race. It may not be the race victory that Hampshire is still searching for, but it is an improvement from last week where Hampshire instead spent the whole race working his way into fourth place instead of the podium positions.

“Honestly it was another night of survival, the main event was ugly again,” said Hampshire. “Goal was to get out of here with a podium. I had another weekend not knowing what the bike is going to do. You can tell I’m not trusting it; you can see these guys in the whoops, that’s just trusting it and knowing what the bike is going to do. Glad we have a little break here, get some confidence and hopefully we show up at St. Louis a little better.”

As for Pierce Brown, a fourth place is a heck of a lot better than what could have been. While leading the heat race earlier on in the evening, Brown missed a whoop while blitzing them and went over the bars hard. He remained on the ground for a couple of laps before eventually being helped up by the Alpinestars Medical Crew.

He would walk off under his own power and amazingly return for the Last Chance Qualifier where he lined up with the last gate selection. He was able to convert that into an LCQ victory and again used a far outside gate in the main event to come out near the front. After all that, he’ll happily take a fourth place to the bank.

Rounding out the top five was Mitchell Oldenburg who also started right up front with the main group this week. Towards the end of the race, Oldenburg appeared to have a legit shot at third place when Hampshire and Brown began to battle in front of him.

Oldenburg got close to Brown on a number of occasions but always seemed to make a few mistakes when he would get close, and the gap would open back up. He was left to settle for fifth place on the night.

And that’s the story here in Indianapolis. A great set of main events for the 11^th round of the championship and another night of the championship leaders extending their lead in both classes. For the 250SX contingent, we will switch back to the West Region next week as we head to Seattle where the 450SX class will continue rolling on as we head into Round 12 of the series. We’ll see you there!