Well how about this? Honda HRC's Chase Sexton weathered an eight-moto win streak from Eli Tomac and now has a three-moto win streak of his own. He's back in the points lead for the 450 class of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship, too, and his performance over the weekend at Unadilla was particularly impressive: he caught and passed Tomac in both motos to roll to uncontested wins. You don't see that happen often.
Unadilla, though, is not Tomac's best track. So, how much of this is Sexton finding another gear and how much of it is just a Unadilla thing? Chase talked about those things in the post-race press conference.
Chase you had a fantastic day, a day most riders dream of. What do you like so much about Unadilla and what was so special today?
Chase Sexton: I’ve always liked this track, I’ve been here, I think this was my fifth time. Today was a lot different. I think every year I’ve come here it’s either rained before we came here or it was raining [while we were here], so it made it softer and more rutted than today. In practice I was really struggling with that. It was drier and choppy. We had to make a decent amount of bike changes, more than we have been doing, and it was good. I didn’t change from moto one to moto two. But yeah today was awesome. I like the rutted conditions. I grew up riding on more hardpack and ruts and that paid off today. I felt really comfortable even though the track could bite you really easily. I had a few close calls, you really had to be on your game. Today was one of those days where I felt like I was—not cruising—but I felt like I was in control.
This track in particular, you said it’s not what you traditionally see at Unadilla. When you saw the track this morning, what did you think about?
Yeah it was more back to how Unadilla used to be, when it was grass, kind of, I mean not totally because it had been ripped, but the first lap it was powdery and we were kicking up dust. It was not super deep compared to what I was used to in the past. I was expecting really long ruts and for it to be soft. I guess it’s been really dry up here and it’s kind of hard ground once you don’t have any rain. They did the best they could. When they ripped it after practice I knew it was going to be better for the motos, but it still got pretty choppy. I think they did a good job. It was consistent, it wasn’t deep in some spots and then hard and slick in others. It had a lot of options for lines, so that was nice.
![Sexton passing his teammate Ken Roczen.]()
Sexton passing his teammate Ken Roczen. Align Media ![Chase Sexton]()
Chase Sexton Align Media ![Chase Sexton and Eli Tomac]()
Chase Sexton and Eli Tomac Align Media ![Sexton claiming the first moto win.]()
Sexton claiming the first moto win. Align Media
You mentioned bike changes between practice and the first motos?
Yeah I just had to free up the bike, it felt a little rigid in practice. I was kind of riding like a hack and that didn’t help. I had to tell myself to be more patient and not override the track. That was really easy to do to. I had to free up the bike. It felt dead and stiff. Normally you can get away with that but here you have to have a more free bike, so that’s what we did.
Getting a first place trophy at an iconic track like this, what does it mean to you?
It means a lot. This is one of my favorite tracks to come to and there’s a lot of history here. I got on the podium here, I think in 2019, and last year I had a good race but I crashed myself out. I remember seeing when the track used to be grass at the start of the day, it was just a different race. I remember when James [Stewart] landed on Ricky [Carmichael] here, it’s just an iconic track and it’s had a lot of great races. To me, the layout is awesome. I got to go over to the other side of the track doing a Monster Energy thing, and I got a good view of the track and it looked pretty cool, it’s a beautiful place. So I’m pumped to have a good day here.
| Position | Rider | Hometown | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Eli Tomac | Cortez, CO  | 546 |
| 2 |  Chase Sexton | La Moille, IL | 539 |
| 3 |  Jason Anderson | Edgewood, NM | 440 |
| 4 |  Ken Roczen | Mattstedt, Germany  | 394 |
| 5 |  Christian Craig | Temecula, CA | 373 |
What section makes this track unique, and is there any section you would like to change?
I would say Screw U is unique, I don’t think we have another section like that, and it’s pretty slow. There’s not much you can do…you can over ride it easier than you can get it right. The slower you go, the better. You lose so much time going up that hill. And the roost here [is bad], I ate a lot of roost in that first moto. My arm, it does not look good right now. Washougal probably gets just as bad of roost, it’s really firm dirt. Here, the rocks, it’s not fun to eat roost for 35 minutes. You can’t really change the roost that much, but I’ve always enjoyed coming here, it’s different than a lot of the tracks and that’s really cool.
What do you think of Budds Creek?
Budds Creek is fun, it’s got really good dirt and it’s one of my favorites. The last three, I wouldn’t say Pala is my favorite but I seem to do good there. So the last three, Budds Creek, Ironman and Pala, I would say Ironman and Budds Creek are two of my favorites. Budds Creek, it’s going to be interesting. It could get hot. We haven’t had really hot races this year, and I’m sure it’s coming at some point. I’m looking forward to that. Budds Creek has a nice layout, good flow, and it’s a lot slower. Compared to this track, this track is really high speed, which I’m not really a fan of. It makes you ride a lot tighter.
Watch the full post-race 450 Class press conference below:
