Jason Anderson is finally a winner in the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship, ending one of the strangest stats in recent memory: the 2018 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Champion, winner of seven 450X supercross mains this year alone, had never taken an overall win in Pro Motocross. That’s over now, because of a big day at Hangtown where Anderson wrestled the first moto lead away from Chase Sexton and hung on to win by 0.39 seconds in a battle to the line. He didn’t get as good of a start in moto two, but bulldogged his way into third, and his 1-3 scores edged out Sexton’s 2-2 and Eli Tomac’s 4-1.
Anderson, of Monster Energy Kawasaki, finally has that win. He talked about it with the media after the race.
Was it true you didn’t know you had won the overall?
Jason Anderson: Yeah, that last lap I got up to third and I was like, 1-3, for some reason I didn’t think that I got the win. I crossed the mechanics’ area, and my mechanic was like, “You did it.” I was like “Did it?” So I asked the flagger when I pulled off and he told me. I was stoked! For me it’s taken 12 years to get a win like this, and a lot of hard work. It feels good.
We talked to Eli about the track conditions. It looked like several times you had to take a bad line and a rough line to make it happen.
Yeah, in general, when you’re out front, you’re able to be a little bit smarter with your lines and stuff like that. First moto, Chase was pulling away from me a little bit there. I changed some of my lines and then I tried to hammer away. It was good. That second moto, I started a little further back. Passing those guys, those guys are good! I was passing Dungey, Cairoli, Kenny. Those guys are pretty gnarly. That’s some work, so once I got to third, I was like, “Man, trying to catch these two [Tomac and Sexton] is going to be tough.” But it was good. I felt today I was able to hammer the whole moto, and it was an improvement over last weekend.
Was the pace quicker today than you thought it would be?
What’s crazy right now is, the pace is pretty high, and when you’re in that top three, I mean, we’re battling all the way to the end. It’s taking everything out of you, and you’re using your brain the whole time. That mental capacity is tough to have for 70 minutes of racing. You’re trying find things, latching on to lines, you’re problem solving the whole time. It’s tough! I think we’re getting better, and I think our bike is good. So, yeah, it’s fun.
Looks like you really have the bike on point.
It’s just little things. It’s that one percent here and there, we’re not making crazy changes, but yeah, we’re making changes. It’s all about knowing what your bike is going to do and being comfortable on that thing. Knowing how it’s going to react and kick when it hits the bumps.
This field is so tough. Not easy to make those passes. But we know the motivation is to get that first national win. You’re going to push to make those passes when necessary.
For me my whole goal is to be relentless and put my effort out there the whole time. Wherevers that puts me, it puts me. First moto, I put the effort out there and was able to get up to the lead. Second moto, everything I had was third place. I think with a start I could just keep fighting. I’m going to try to do that all year and see where we end up.
Anything that looked like a close call today?
Where that jump is that used to be called the Fly 150, the first moto I hit it way too fast and was thinking it was still that 150-foot jump! I just jumped off the track and that’s honestly where I lost a lot of time to Chase. It was me just forgetting the jump was smaller than it usually is.
Three tenths of a second was the win in the first moto. Once you got the lead from Chase, where you expecting him to settle in? Or did you expect him to come back at you?
When I was behind him, he got caught up with lappers a little bit. And then for me, coming into those last couple of laps, you get into that top 15 and they’re battling. It’s hard for them to want to give up too much, because some of those guys are in a battle. That’s how our racing works and it’s just another variable we have to deal with. As far as that first moto goes, I was still pushing trying to hold that gap.
How are you going to celebrate your first national win?
Right now it’s a little too early in the season to celebrate the way I want to! To be honest I’m probably just going to grab some dinner and stuff like that. I’m glad I finally don’t have to hear about not having an outdoor win anymore. That’s pretty nice. I’m stoked, I’m really happy where we’re at with my riding and everything like that. It just gives me more motivation. I’m going to celebrate and be happy and proud of myself, but I’ve just got to try to keep this ball rolling.
