450 Words The Highs, The Lows

Nothing symbolizes Chase Sexton’s 450 career like the last two events in Monster Energy AMA Supercross. He crashed hard in practice at the Seattle Supercross and wasn’t able to race. After a weekend off, the series returned in St. Louis and he found himself winning the first race of the Triple Crown format with ease. He couldn’t catch Marvin Musquin in the second or third races, so his 1-3-3 scores left him second overall to Musquin. Still, it’s a heck of a bounce back. The Honda HRC rider talked about the ups and downs in the post-race press conference.

Chase, for you to come out to win one of the races tonight, congratulations on that. How’s the feeling to be back on the podium?
Chase Sexton: Yeah. It was good to come out and get a win in the first race. I felt really good. I felt good all day on the bike. Definitely a lot more comfortable. I did some outdoor riding our week off and then did a little bit of supercross testing last week. We found some things that helped. I just felt a lot more comfortable, which I feel like it showed. The first start was really good, which helped me in that first race. Kind of my starts fell off the second two races. Like everyone said, everyone was one it so I had to kind of catch back up in that third one. Overall, it was a good building step. Happy to be healthy after all my crashes I’ve had. Just looking forward to build and going back to Atlanta [Motor] Speedway. It’s cool. I was pretty fond of it last year, so I’m excited to go back there and try and get to the top step.

You look like you’ve had some serious crashes, yet you’re on the box on the podium tonight. How do you explain your resiliency?
It’s been tough, especially after that last one. I was pretty down after Seattle, just not being able to race. It just felt like it kept happening and came out of nowhere. I kind of just had to put it all behind me. I feel like I was close to getting back to where I was at the beginning of the season. Just had to find a few things to get some more comfort back. I think we found them. Obviously, we keep making changes, but it’s just nice to have some comfort and feeling back with the bike. It's been a good last week. Just want to keep moving. It was definitely challenging mentally just to keep pushing. You just got to keep going because you never know when you’re going to get to that peak.

What are the emotional ups and downs of the roller coaster of racing in this class? Is it a lot more difficult week to week than the 250 days? Is that one of the big things to learn as you’re adjusting to this class?
Yeah, I would say so. I don’t want to say the 250 class was easy by any means, but I feel like I went through it fairly quick and I got to the 450 class and it was a pretty big wakeup. These guys are very seasoned and they know what they’re doing. I’m still learning, but I feel like each year and each race I’m getting better and better. Those crashes, like I said, are frustrating. I feel like I keep learning. You’ve got to learn from your mistakes. Like I said, I think I’m just getting better. But it is emotional because one weekend you can be down in the dumps and the next weekend you can come out and possibly win. You’ve just got to keep pushing. Like I said, you never know when you’re about to break through. So, you’ve got to keep pushing. That’s kind of where I’m at right now.

I know you’re pretty hard on yourself when it doesn’t go well. Are you trying to not ride those lows and not ride those highs quite as much? We hear the veteran riders say that all the time. Don’t be so low when it’s low, and don’t be so high when it’s high. Is that something you’re trying to do?
Yeah. It’s a lot easier said than done, but it’s definitely something I’m working on, trying to kind of take those bad races and learn from the mistakes instead of being down on myself. Then obviously the highs are really good and really easy to get through, but the lows you’ve got to kind of be able to manage that. It’s easier said than done, but definitely something I’m working on. Not every race is going to be perfect, so you’ve got to be able to bounce back and get through it.

Watch the full 450 post-race press conference below: