Saturday Night Live: Hangtown

In the second moto, following a holeshot from none other than MXGP import Cairoli, it was the duo of Roczen and Sexton taking the lead, with Sexton once again eventually taking over the lead and sprinting away up front. Okay, no way he was going to get caught this time! Not until Tomac hit the button and engaged beast mode, anyway. Tomac put on another one of his patented charges and after getting by Roczen, hunted down Sexton, passed him, and set sail. It was definitely over at this point—nobody catches Tomac when he’s on one of his runs! But Sexton did, giving Tomac all he could handle in the final two laps, just like he had to Anderson. Tomac was able to withstand the pressure and hold on for the moto win, but the comeback from Sexton was extremely impressive. Unfortunately for Sexton, Anderson had caught Roczen for third, and Anderson’s 1-3 beat Sexton’s 2-2.

“When both of them got me in each moto I really started to learn off them and see what they were doing better. They gapped me a little bit right away, and I told myself I had to give it a fight, I had to charge,” Sexton said. “I didn’t get the win, but I feel like I showed some grit. That’s who I want to be. I don’t want to lay over. I don’t want them to walk away with it easily. I know they wouldn’t do that for me. I saw Jason was in third, going down that last downhill I saw him, and I was aware I needed to get Eli. I wasn’t aware if I was going to get second or third place, at one point I thought I was going to go 2-2 for third place and I was like, ‘Well that’s not good.’ I knew I had to get Eli and that wasn’t going to be easy. I put in two good charges. I didn’t get it done but I’m happy with how I rode. I was consistent and smart, and overall it was good racing.”

After the race Anderson didn’t even know he’d won. His mechanic had put, “You did it,” on his pit board, but Anderson thought me meant he’d landed on the podium, not won the whole damn thing. When he pulled off the track and was informed he’d final gotten that first overall win in Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross after 12 years of trying, he was ecstatic.

“Right now it’s a little too early in the season to celebrate the way I want to,” Anderson laughed when asked how he was going to celebrate checking off the win box at the nationals. “I’ll probably just go grab some dinner tonight. It’s been a really long time, and I’m really excited I don’t have to hear about not having that outdoor win yet. That’s pretty nice. I’m stoked and I’m really happy with my riding and it gives me more motivation. I’m going to try to keep the ball rolling.

We’re glad we don’t have to talk about it anymore too, Jason!

Third overall by way of 4-1 moto scores was Tomac, who mentioned how important it was to make a strong showing at Hangtown one week after having a disappointing showing at Fox Raceway.

“I lost eighteen points [last week] and I lost more points today, obviously. I look at that and it’s like, ‘I need to get my act together,’” Tomac said in the post-race press conference. “Last week in that first moto I went backward, and that sucks as a rider, to go backward. I started second and thought I’d be okay and ended up seventh place, or whatever it was. Then in moto two I was still off from the top guys. [Hangtown] was good for us, it was a big rebound.”

One cool moment of the second 450 race came when Cairoli holeshot the second moto and threw a whip off the first jump. Afterward we asked Cairoli about it and he said he did it on purpose, hoping someone would get a picture of it so he’d have a cool souvenir to hang on his wall. How cool is that? Cairoli, who’d never ridden at Hangtown until today, went 7-6 for sixth overall, edging his teammate Ryan Dungey, who went 6-7 for seventh overall. Roczen was fourth overall with a 3-4, while Christian Craig battled his way to a solid 5-5 for fifth overall.

In the 250 ranks things were just as tumultuous as they were in the 450 ranks, if not more. As early as Friday afternoon there were whispers that defending champ Jett Lawrence was dealing with a nasty sickness, but c’mon, how bad could it be? Well, after he didn’t even attempt to put in a fast lap in the second qualifier (and if he did attempt he failed miserably), it became clear that he was indeed dealing with something that was going to hamper his performance. And it did in the first moto, but not as much as it could have. Lawrence was nowhere near the battle for the lead, but as the race wore on he was slowly moving up. His brother, Hunter, was able to catch him and go around him seemingly easily, but then Hunter crashed all by himself, handing the spot he should have had right back to Jett, who held onto it to take third in the moto.

In the second moto Jett, who threw up right before, had more help from the competition. Justin Cooper holeshot but made a mistake and blew off the track, handing the lead over to Jett, who’d gotten out of the gate well. Cooper recovered and held second, and looked like he might be able to mount a charge on the ailing Jett, but it just didn’t happen. Jett would later be on the receiving end of an emerging threat from Jo Shimoda, who was riding incredibly well, but then Shimoda crashed all by himself. Just like that, Jett’s threat was eliminated. He also didn’t have to deal with Michael Mosiman, who completely crushed the first moto but crashed out of the second moto almost right away. It wasn’t Jett’s day, but somehow he still managed to go 3-1 for the win. Hey, when the cards fall your way, they fall your way!

Speaking of Mosiman, by the way, enough cannot be said about how brilliant he was in the first moto. The NorCal native had never won a moto before, but was able to terminate that objective with extreme prejudice in front of his hometown crowd, who roared their approval for him all around the track. Mosiman held off pressure early from Seth Hammker, battled his way past an extremely stubborn Jalek Swoll, and yanked the lead away from Justin Cooper on lap six (of 16). Once in the lead he never faltered, and checked out. It’s a bummer for Mosiman to have crashed out of the second moto, especially when he was riding so well and in front of the hometown crowd, but afterward he seemed confident on his ability to focus on the positive and keep rolling next week in Thunder Valley.

“I stayed focused on my race, and even at one point with five laps to go I thought, ‘If someone catches me, so be it. If I get caught, so be it,’ and I let go of the fear,” Mosimain explained. “If you have a fear of getting caught and passed then you’re not worrying about what you need to worry about. That was huge, letting that go and letting my natural ability take over. It was cool. To do it here, my first win, it was really cool. My mechanic Jay has been wrenching for twenty years, and that was his first moto win too. I saw a lot of childhood friends today and a lot of people who supported me. I was getting cheered on around the whole track, and that meant something to me. To do it here in front of my mom and dad, it was a really sweet moment.”

Some casualties of the first 250 moto were RH Hampshire and Jalek Swoll. Hampshire had a big crash that sent his bike flying and eventually landing on Austin Forkner’s mechanic, Tony Archer. Hampshire was banged up and missed the second moto, while Archer was on crutches after and has a fracture somewhere in his lower leg or ankle. Coty Schock, if you’re reading this, now it’s your turn to carry Archer’s cup of coffee around for him. Swoll, who went down toward the end of the first moto, was listed with a DNS for the second. No official word on what he’s dealing with, but we’ll have the information for you at some point in the upcoming week.