First Qualifying Sessions

As the day kicked off, the track crew was working feverishly to keep water in the track as the sun was beaming right from sunrise. The 250B and then 250A groups of qualifying were greeted with a pretty deep and wet track but it was quite dry by the time the 450A group headed out. 

In that 250A session, it was Levi Kitchen who set the early pace as the Monster Energy/Yamaha Star Racing rider was really looking for a turnaround this week. Hunter Lawrence appeared to be taking it easy as he's still a little sore from his practice crash prior to Fox Raceway and managed to put his Honda in P10.

Kitchen was eventually leapfrogged by his teammate Justin Cooper who became the first rider all day to jump down to the 2:08's with a 2:08.250. Times were pretty close throughout the top tier of the 250 class though as a lot of riders were in the 2:10s and 2:11s, but they're all chasing JCoop after one session.

Onto the 450A group we went after some track maintenance and it was Cooper Webb and Aaron Plessinger who were fast early on. It appeared the Red Bull KTM duo were keen to come out firing as they led the field around and were 1-2 for a while. 

Championship leader Jett Lawrence was cruising around early like his brother Hunter but he eventually wicked it up on his fourth lap around to shoot right to the top of the board with a 2:09.811. Webb would tick his time down to a 2:10.299 late in the session to get within half a second but Lawrence needed no improvements as his time held to top the first round of qualifying.

Second Qualifying Sessions

Guillem Farres kicked off the second 250 A session with a scorching 2:08.868, which was fast enough to stand for several laps, but soon it was JO:30, as Jo Shimoda busted out a 2:07.982 to take over the top spot. RJ Hampshire would be the next rider to take a turn at the top when he recorded a 2:07.211, and that time came on a lap in which Hampshire even made a few small mistakes! Hampshire definitely looked fast out there, but it was Justin Cooper who snuck in a heater at the very end, a 2:06.947, to become the day’s fastest 250 qualifier. He was even faster than all but one 450 rider! That’s good news for Cooper, who is looking to improve after taking fifth last week at Fox Raceway, but then again, he was fastest at the season opener too.

Hunter Lawrence, who we know is riding with a rib injury, had a solid second session. He didn’t look like he was really pushing it super hard, but when the checkers flew he was third-fastest. He’s always strong in the motos too, so the competition will likely have their hands full today if they want to keep Lawrence from going back-to-back.

Jordon Smith put in a few laps that looked insanely fast, but it didn’t turn out that way on paper. Despite looking like he was about to set a new land speed record in spots, he ended up 12^th fastest in this one. His teammate, Haiden Deegan, also wasn’t on pace with the leaders, and was 13^th fastest with a 2:10.060.

In 450 action the times were faster than the first session. Adam Cianciarulo quickly set a 2:08.300, which held strong for several laps, but then Jett Lawrence decided he wanted to go fast and casually served up a 2:06.887! Nobody would end up beating that time, except for Lawrence himself, who threw down again on the last lap to produce a 2:06.287. Cianciarulo’s early fast lap was good enough to keep him in second, with Aaron Plessinger and Cooper Webb also in the 2:08’s and not far behind.

Dylan Ferrandis was solid, taking fifth-fastest with a 2:09.072, but he also seemed to have a hard time finding his flow out there. He spent a lot of time kind of just riding around, and went into the mechanic’s area time and time again. If he’s searching for something, hopefully he finds it for the motos.

250 Moto 1

Off the start in the first 250 class moto of the day, it was Haiden Deegan grabbing the holeshot just ahead of his teammate Justin Cooper. Jett Reynolds was in third off the start just behind the Yamaha duo with Tom Vialle right on his heels. On the second lap of the race, Reynolds got sideways off the top of the hill and jumped into some sponsor banners and fell down. That shuffled him back outside of the top 20 while Vialle moved into third with Guillem Farres and Ryder DiFrancesco rounding out the top five.

Jeremy Martin had another terrible start and was well outside of the top 20 in the early running. Caden Braswell then went down on the third lap and would go to the mechanics area and rejoin a lap down. More riders like Maximus Vohland and Michael Mosiman found themselves down the order early also and would spend much of the race knifing through the field.

Jett Reynolds crashed again as the midfield pack was huge and started to get hung up together which caused Reynolds to tip over off someone’s rear wheel. RJ Hampshire, Jo Shimoda, DiFrancesco, Jalek Swoll, Levi Kitchen, and more were nose to tail for a lot of the race. Shimoda and Hampshire were able to sneak away from that pack and instead work up to Guillem Farres and Tom Vialle.

Hunter Lawrence worked around Farres and Vialle to get into third and set sail after Deegan and Cooper out front. The battle for the lead came down to Cooper and Deegan out front though as after dropping back early on, Cooper began to reel in his young teammate. The crowd was absolutely loving it as Deegan took the two-lap board just two seconds out front.

Cooper continued to challenge him but a few mistakes with those two laps left to go pushed Deegan’s lead out to over three seconds. The writing was on the wall by that point as Deegan just point one final solid lap together in front of a roaring crowd as he crossed the finish line to win the first moto of his career.

Deegan’s win came in just his seventh career moto, and he was immediately greeted by his father Brian with a big hug. Cooper was able to finish up in second with Hunter Lawrence rounding out the podium. Shimoda and Hampshire completed the top five.

450 Moto 1

You can look at the results on paper, and you can look at the winner’s margin of victory, 4.122 seconds, but that info won’t tell the story of the race, which was one of total domination by Jett Lawrence. The Honda HRC rider started neck-and-neck with Dylan Ferrandis, emerged with the lead, and that was that. Lawrence started inching away, and at roughly eight minutes in, had four seconds on Ferrandis in second. From that point Lawrence almost seemed like he put it in cruise control, casually glancing over and marking Ferrandis’ position every lap, and making sure he maintained his gap. He didn’t even look like he was going fast, and you got the feeling he could have turned it up a notch and dropped his lap times if he’d needed to.

Behind him Ferrandis was getting all he could handle from Aaron Plessinger. The Red Bull KTM rider was all over Ferrandis, trying and trying to get around him, but Ferrandis wouldn’t allow it, prompting Plessinger to drop back several seconds and, in his words, “Look for different lines.” When the two lap board came out Plessinger wicked it back up, closing on the back wheel of Ferrandis yet again, but he struggled to get through lapped traffic cleanly and just wasn’t able to put himself in a position to get around Ferrandis.

Thirty seconds behind that battle was Cooper Webb, who rode to the loneliest fourth-place finish of all time.

Twenty seconds behind Webb was Adam Cianciarulo, who rode to the loneliest fifth-place finish of all time.

Even Fredrik Noren and Ty Masterpool, who took sixth and seventh, were by themselves. If you wanted a battle, it could be seen in the fight for eighth between Derek Drake and Lorenzo Locurcio. Locurcio held the spot for a while, but Dreake would not let him get away, and for multiple laps the battle raged as Drake absolutely hounded Locurcio. Drake would eventually win this one and went on to finish about six seconds ahead of Locurcio.

It’s hot here at Hangtown, and as a result the track has dried out quite a bit, making for some tough conditions. Expect the second set of motos to be brutal for the riders.

250 Moto 2

The final 250 class moto fired off and it was Justin Cooper this time who came out with the holeshot. A huge pileup in the second corner put a lot of guys down but crucially Jeremy Martin and Michael Mosiman both saw their races end right there. Martin had his arm ran over in an ugly scene while Mosiman appeared to be knocked out on the track. Both riders would be carted off back to the pits with no further update on their condition at this time.

Cooper led for the first three laps until Hunter Lawrence found a way to sneak by into the lead. Lawrence quite quickly opened up a few second gap on Cooper while they both started pulling away from Jalek Swoll behind them.

Swoll had Tom Vialle right on him for about the first half of the moto until Vialle broke through and took off towards the leaders. Chance Hymas also found his way around Swoll but then Swoll picked his pace back up as Haiden Deegan began to pressure him.

From Hymas all the way back to Maximus Vohland in 13^th, there was a huge battle. RJ Hampshire worked his way up from another mediocre start to work into that huge battle by halfway and then he worked around Guillem Farres, Levi Kitchen, and then eventually his teammate Swoll and also Hymas.

Deegan found his way through Hymas and Swoll also to get into fourth before Hampshire could get there and he opened up a few second gap on Hampshire in the late stages of the moto. The front three had completely broken away by that time and there was plenty of time between each of them for them all to ride it to the flag in their respective positions.

Hunter Lawrence cruised to his second moto win of the season and took his 3-1 scores to his second consecutive overall win as well. Justin Cooper’s 2-2 scores fell one point short of the overall while Haiden Deegan’s 1-4 was good enough for third on the podium.

450 Moto 2

There was a dogfight for the holeshot to kick off the final moto of the day between Dylan Ferrandis, Cooper Webb, and Jett Lawrence, but it was Lawrence who would get the edge. Then, just like he did in the first 450 moto, Lawrence went to work and quickly built up roughly a four-to-five second gap, which he would simply maintain for the entire moto.

Behind him the action was superb, with Webb withstanding immense pressure from Aaron Plessinger for what seemed like forever. Ferrandis lurked just behind them ready to pounce if the opportunity presented itself. Finally, with about ten minutes to go, Plessinger, who’d been absolutely relentless, made a move stick on Webb to take over second. He then put in a charge and made some time on Lawrence,  cutting Lawrence’s gap to just three-and-a-half seconds, but Lawrence noticed and immediately responded. Somehow, on lap ten of the fourth moto of the day, Lawrence set his fastest lap of the moto, then followed up with another lap almost equally as fast. Just like that, the gap was back up to over five seconds.

Plessinger would end up going down just after the finish line while running second. Unfortunately he snapped his clutch lever in the crash, and it took him quite a while longer than normal to get going again. That allowed Adam Cianciarulo and Jose Butron by and relegated Plessinger to sixth in the moto. Webb hung on for second, despite heavy pressure from Ferrandis, who took third.