450 Words: Job Done

Moranz started showing up at Southwick in a bid for more points. Josh Hill jumped in at Washougal, although he said he knows his chances of making the playoffs are slim and he just did Washougal for fun as much as anything. The stories of these guys grabbing bikes and borrowing stuff to get in is quite compelling, too.

McElrath’s Yamaha was stock outside of grips and a clutch. He had stock suspension, just turning the clickers to full stiff! He went 11-39-15-14 in his four motos so far, giving him 23 valuable points. He’s now 18^th in the combined standings.

“It’s calming down now,” McElrath told our Kellen Brauer after Washougal. “Before I raced it was like, “Dude some of these guys are starting to have some good weekends, and it's like maybe someone else is going to find it.” It's kind of hard to tell. The average finish of the guys around me, it's been pretty good, and they’ve been catching me, and some guys it's kind of inevitable that they would [pass me]. But after last weekend, just scoring some points, I am pretty comfortable... Because my biggest thing is I don’t want to worry about the LCQ. I am here to race, I will do whatever I can to not race the LCQ. Ideally, I’ll race two more outdoors, that’s kind of my plan. But if I don’t absolutely have to, because there are a lot of expenses that I am having to put forth, so if there are some races I don’t have to do, maybe we think about that.

“I have already committed to doing something the weekend of Budds Creek,” said McElrath. “I would like to at least do Unadilla, and Ironman, I like that track and it's somewhat close, so it kind of changes by the week. And we have to figure out some supercross stuff and what the SMX tracks are going to be like, we are kind of living week to week right now.”

McElrath was okay with stock suspension at Millville, but Washougal was rougher than he expected. “So, I have some work to do on the bike, which I guess it's time right? I still love the bike; I just need a little bit of extra help with the suspension. I am happy with my effort today, it was really physical out there for me with the drop offs and the hills and the bumps. I was really having to work hard to ride at 80 percent. So, I am disappointed in that, but I was pushing in both motos, I finished both motos, and scored some points both motos. Not a lot I can really complain about.”

McElrath was happy when we told him several other riders thought Washougal was rougher than usual, and it wasn’t just him and his suspension.

“That makes me feel better because I literally was like, “Dude, this sucks.” Both motos I came from behind and really had to make quite a few passes, which I was kind of happy with. I wasn’t really able to push super hard, but some of those passes it was the quick spurts of intensity. And I was able to do it, but I was like, “Dude, I can’t do that all of the way around the track.” So, it was definitely rough, and it was definitely tricky.”

On Friday at Washougal, we found Colt Nichols on his borrowed Kawasaki KX450SR (Special Racer) edition machine. He literally borrowed Donn Maeda’s SwapMoto Live test bike, rode it for two days and then raced Washougal. Then he went 10-10 for tenth overall, netting 22 huge points! 

“It was such a fun day, the PNW [Pacific Northwest] fans up here were way better than I anticipated,” said Nichols. “They were all just so pumped, the atmosphere was incredible. I sold some shirts today and met some new people. I was just excited to be here, and the feedback was awesome. 10-10 on the day, a little bummed, but I can’t be too bummed on going 10-10 with the preparation we had. I rode Donn’s bike twice before we came here and kinda just winged it, you know? We made do with what we had, no excuses, and that’s the best we could do today. With some circumstances we could have been better off, but I think everyone could say that! Overall, I’m pretty pumped." 

The 22 points leaves Nichols in 19^th, but he has some room behind him, because Hill is 20^th, and probably not racing anymore motocross. Then comes Christian Craig, who is still out with injury, Jose Butron and (also injured) Lorenzo Locurcio, then Moranz. Nichols might only have to worry about Butron’s scores down the stretch, but he currently has a 31-point buffer on him.

“I don’t know, I think this week we’ll discuss what the next move is,” says Nichols. “Now that I got a taste of it, I want to do more of these. I feel like I could be better with some bike setup things we learned today, and I could have more pace. We have to figure it out logistically, if we can make sense of it, we will. But hopefully we got locked into the SMX. That was the big deal, I really want to do those three races and then right after the three races is the second round of WSX at Singapore.”

Nichols best motocross campaign came in 2019, when he finished seventh in the 250 class. He missed all of last season with injury.  

“[My last motocross race] was 2021, I don’t even know my last race because I missed the last few with a shoulder injury,” he says. “It’s been a while and I’ve never raced one on a 450. The track was a little rougher than I remember! I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow, but I had so much fun. A little frustrated with that second one, but I didn’t get lapped by Jett, that was pretty cool! It was a damned good time.”

Don’t ever worry about Chizz, by the way. By scoring 82 points in motocross, a series he wasn’t even supposed to do, he sits comfortably 15^th in the combined points.