First Qualifying Sessions

Bikes fired to life just after 8 a.m. local time as qualifying began for the 11^th round. Despite being in two different age groups, there has been some hype building about Ryder DiFrancesco and Haiden Deegan racing each other today so it was a bit humorous to see DiFrancesco go fastest right on the first lap of qualifying.

Things quickly delved back into the norm though as Jett Lawrence shot to the top of the board around the halfway mark. The track was pretty wet and deep early in the morning and riders were covered in dirt and mud as they tried to search around the track for some good lines.

Eventually, Justin Cooper found the conditions to his liking and dropped a low 2:00 lap time. The time was plenty to qualify P1 in the first sessions of the day for the 250 class as he was 1.4 seconds clear of Jett Lawrence at the top.

The 450 A group was next onto the track and pretty quickly it was clear that Chase Sexton was fired up. He shot right to the top of the board early in the session and continued to lower his times for the rest of the session.

Eli Tomac found his way into second a few times, but Joey Savatgy was actually able to do one better than Tomac as he pipped him for second place by a tenth of a second. Nobody ended up close to Sexton though as he out-qualified everyone by 1.4 seconds in the first session. The track is likely to get a bit faster as it dries out for the second sessions here in a couple hours so we’ll see what the boys put down then.

Second Qualifying Sessions

Justin Cooper followed up his strong form from the first session and rolled it right into the second session as he was quickly onto the top of the leaderboard again. Times did fall just a little bit from the first session but Cooper himself actually went just a few hundredths slower than his first session time.

Hunter Lawrence was looking to make amends for a rough first qualifying session where he was outside of the top 10 and did so in Q2 when he jumped up to second behind Cooper. Jett Lawrence’s time from Q1 was still enough though to keep him P2 overall. But they are all chasing Justin Cooper going into the motos today as Cooper has qualified P1 for the Ironman National.

Early on in the second 450 A qualifying session, Joey Savatgy fell and seemed to be in some pain off the side of the track as the Kawasaki team got to him. Savatgy would eventually ride off as he allegedly overjumped something and hit his head/nose on the bars. It sounds like he'll give it a go today but we'll provide a further update when we get one.

As for the battle for P1, it delivered as advertised with Chase Sexton sitting on top early in the session before Tomac picked it up and lowered his time into the low 1:59s which moved him to the top of the board. It seemed like that might be enough to stay up there, but Sexton dropped a 1:58 on the last lap to steal the top time away. It’s Sexton from Tomac as we head to the line for the first motos here shortly.

250 Moto 1

Nate Thrasher shot out of the gate and into the lead off the start of the first 250 moto of the day and the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing rider went to work on pulling away. He had RJ Hampshire and Max Vohland behind him in second and third, respectively, but Thrasher put a few seconds on them right away.

Vohland was on a mission early in the race as he initially made quick work on Hampshire for second and closed up on Thrasher for the lead. Just as he stuck his nose to the inside of Thrasher for P1, he made a small mistake and lost about a second allowing Thrasher to hold the lead. That seemed to stop Vohland in his tracks as he slowly lost the tow to Thrasher and slipped back to Hampshire.

As Hampshire caught Vohland again, so too did Jett Lawrence catch Hampshire and the points leader made some quick work of both gentlemen to move into second place. Thrasher was about four seconds in the lead by this point, so Jett put his head down and went to work.

Within four laps, Jett was on Thrasher for the lead and got around him by the halfway mark. From there, Jett just took off with the lead while Thrasher slipped back to Hampshire. Within another few laps, Hampshire was around Thrasher as well and into second place again.

The fastest two riders on the track though were Hunter Lawrence and Jo Shimoda who were coming from outside of the top 10 and worked their way up to Justin Cooper for a spot in the top five. The Wheels on the Ground flag waved on the big table up top and Hunter Lawrence and Cooper both jumped while Shimoda rolled. We are still waiting on official word on who will receive penalties for the infraction.

From there though, Lawrence and Shimoda both got around Cooper and began pushing up to Thrasher for a spot in the top three. By the time both of them got to Thrasher though, Shimoda hit the deck trying to get around Lawrence for fourth. That pushed him off of the battle for third, but he was able to remount in fifth still.

Haiden Deegan had an unfortunate end to his first pro moto as he went down in the back section and would not finish the moto. He was eventually carted off and there has not been an update yet as to whether he will race the second moto or not.

Up front though, Jett Lawrence cruised to the moto victory taking the win ahead of Hampshire and Hunter Lawrence who eventually worked around Thrasher for third. Shimoda rounded out the top five leaving Lawrence’s championship lead at 46 with three motos to go.

450 Moto 1

Christian Craig rocketed out to the holeshot in the first 450 moto but was quickly moved to second as Ken Roczen took over the lead. Roczen was able to pull out a bit of a lead as Craig slipped back to a battle with Ryan Dungey who was in a good position early.

Eli Tomac ended up with a better start than Sexton as Tomac came through the holeshot line in the top 10 with Sexton in about 15^th. Both of them went right to work on passing people and weaving to the front. Tomac made the quicker work of the two as he made it up around Craig for second by the fourth lap of the race.

Sexton made it into fifth at about the same time but took a few more laps to get around Dungey and Craig before he was into third place. By then, Tomac had caught Roczen for the lead and was pushing to make a move on the German.

Roczen did well to hold Tomac behind him for a couple laps once Tomac got there which allowed Sexton to tighten up the gap a bit. Tomac then went to the lead and Sexton was able to follow through into second a lap later as Roczen moved aside and let him through.

From there, the chase was literally on as Sexton chipped away the lead to Tomac here and there before getting on to him. The moment everyone will be talking about then happened after that when Sexton got sideways and ended up cutting the track a bit to not hit a tree. He didn’t gain time but he also didn’t lose time, so we’ll see what the officials say about it.

Sexton shook it off quickly and was able to close back onto Tomac and took advantage of a small mistake from Tomac to nab the lead. It seemed like Sexton had found his groove as he put a little gap between the two of them, but it was not done yet.

Tomac then found his classic Beast Mode form late in the race and laid down his best lap of the moto as time expired. He used the same corner Sexton had passed him earlier in the race to sneak around the outside and take the lead. Sexton seemed to lose the steam a bit and ran one of his worst laps of the race simultaneously which allowed Tomac to open a gap.

In the end, Tomac went on to win the first 450 moto with Sexton closing back in to just a couple seconds behind in the end for one remarkable moto. There’s still one more moto to go as well as we get ready to dive into the second motos with just a four point gap between Tomac and Sexton now!

250 Moto 2

As the gates dropped in the second 250 class moto, it was Justin Cooper who funneled out of the middle to grab the holeshot. He led for about a half a lap before Jo Shimoda was able to snag the lead away. After the first moto, Shimoda needed to not lose four points to Jett Lawrence to keep the championship alive until next week’s Fox Raceway 2 National and getting the early lead was the right way to make it happen.

Shimoda and Cooper led away early with Hunter Lawrence sneaking his way into third place before long. Haiden Deegan was back after his big crash in 250 Moto 1 but found the dirt again just three corners into the moto. He gingerly limped back to his bike and was able to remount way behind the field as he went to work on charging forward.

Jett Lawrence found himself just inside the top 10 off the start and spent a bulk of the moto working his way around the likes of Cameron McAdoo, Jalek Swoll, Nate Thrasher, and eventually Justin Cooper before he was able to get into third place with about 10 minutes left to go.

Tough breaks for both Levi Kitchen and Pierce Brown as seemingly both riders crashed separately, and they would end up pulling off the track and pulling out of the moto with about 20 minutes still on the clock. No updates have been given at this time about their conditions, but they did ride back to the pits under their own power.

Carson Mumford also pulled off the track at the halfway mark, but it sounded like he was having a bike issue as he rolled through the pits wide open without going particularly fast. Either way, not the way he wanted his day to end either.

Up front though, the battles remained fairly status quo as Shimoda just managed the gap to Hunter Lawrence behind him and cruised to the race victory in Moto 2. Hunter Lawrence finished in second with Jett Lawrence’s taking home a third place in the moto, but it was enough for Jett to take the overall win on the day. It was not enough, however, for Jett to clinch the title a round early as Shimoda kept the gap under 50 points at the end of the day.

450 Moto 2

The final moto of the day was going to be critical for Sexton to not let Tomac extend the championship lead anymore and he did exactly what he needed to do on the start by launching out to the holeshot. His teammate Ken Roczen nestled in right behind him and actually took the lead away from him going up the Godzilla jump on the first lap of the race.

Roczen led the first lap through but then swung wide on the start straight allowing Sexton to retake the lead as Roczen tucked in behind him. Eli Tomac had found his way into third quickly after starting in about sixth place and was not far behind Roczen after the first lap.

It wasn’t long before Tomac was on Roczen for second and it suddenly became a battle of how long Roczen could hold To0mac behind in order to help out his teammate Sexton get away at the front. Tomac was trying to find different lines around the track to make something happen but there just didn’t seem to be an opening. Finally, he got alongside to the outside before the finish and Roczen blocked him, but Tomac read it well and cut underneath him to make the pass stick.

By the time Tomac was into second though, Sexton’s lead was out over four seconds and Sexton was also starting to click off consistent fastest laps of the race. For the few laps right after Tomac got into second, the gap stayed basically the exact same at that five second mark between the two leaders.

The battle for third was intensifying by the halfway point as Ryan Dungey and Aaron Plessinger were both catching Ken Roczen for third place. At the time, Dungey was in position to finally finish third overall, but he needed to keep his teammate Plessinger behind him to secure the overall podium.

Just beyond the halfway mark of the moto, Plessinger finally slipped down the inside in the back of the track to take the fourth position away from Dungey which moved him onto the overall podium. Plessinger wasn’t done though as he then reeled in Roczen in a hurry and made the move into third place with about nine minutes still to go.

Tomac clicked into another gear again and reeled in Chase Sexton for the lead with six minutes left to go in the moto. Sexton started to respond as he matched Tomac’s lap time for the next two laps before the critical moment of the moto when Tomac nearly tipped over cross rutting a corner in the back and lost several seconds. After losing the tow of Sexton, Tomac seemed content to not lose even more and settled into a pace good enough to keep second place.

From there, Sexton cruised away to the second moto victory which won him the overall and kept the deficit to Tomac at just one point with just the final round at Fox Raceway to go. It is simply down whoever wins next week will likely win the championship as Sexton claimed the day at Ironman with Tomac ending up second overall. Aaron Plessinger would put 3-3 scores on the board for his second podium of the season to round out the podium results.