After an intense duel that came down to the last turn on the last lap, Cooper Webb held off Chase Sexton by half a second to win his third race of the season. The duo talked about the fight in the Seattle Supercross post-race press conference.
Cooper Webb: Yeah, it was an incredibly challenging track. I think we say it every weekend, but this truly was just brutal. I think every lap we were all making mistakes and it was really tough. I had the good line there jumping the wall [in the sand] and it was working really well and then the lip kind of went away and, then it was struggle city from there. I felt like I really struggled there after that. But, I just stayed clean, you know? I think we all made mistakes, but maybe I made the least mistakes and put myself in a good position for sure.
Chase. Very close tonight. You were very close at the end. Can you kind of talk us through those last laps? And if you had an idea where you could make the pass?
Chase Sexton: Yeah, I had a good race, I made a lot of mistakes, but I think with this track it was super hard to stay clean and I ended up stalling it again, which I have no idea why I did that in the heat race and I did it again in the main, but I actually missed the double, which was supposed to be the triple, before the sand one lap. I lost a little bit of ground, obviously, and I was probably three to four seconds back and I honestly just put my head down. I knew I had really good speed I could put in consistent laps and get back to Cooper. Then the last two laps I knew I was close and I didn't really have a specific idea where I was gonna make the pass. I was good on the on-off and then into the sand at the end, I was doubling into that hole, which was really hard. Just that second-to-last turn before the finish line. If you went inside, I kind of went outside thinking that maybe he was gonna go across the ruts and like, block me, but he went inside and I kind of squared up and try to get alongside of him, but he's definitely a smart rider, so he's not gonna fall for that stuff. But, overall I just tried to ride as hard as I could no matter what the circumstances were.
Cooper, normally you're the person coming from behind making the passes. Did you have to ride more defensively in the last lap?
Webb: Oh, for sure. Chase found a really good flow at the end and caught up. I had, I think, plus five at one point and he sucked it right up. So I knew I had to hit my marks and I definitely tightened up. I lost some flow and lost some of my lines that were working early and didn't adapt to some of the ones I should have. I just knew that, hey, there was really, in my mind, two places he could get me and I made sure to make those difficult to pass. Then we got real close at the end and just had to make sure I was on the inside.
Chase, obviously you needed this win. You wanted the win and you fought for it until the end. Are you leaving here with your head held high just knowing that you're in a better situation maybe than you have been in the previous weeks?Sexton: Yeah, definitely. I mean, last weekend, this weekend definitely showed signs of improvement there. Uh, there for a while when I was back there battling for fifth and sixth, it is not fun. It's not fun at all. I worked really hard to win races and be on the podium and when I'm back there and lallygagging and wherever it was, I lost a lot of confidence, but these last two weekends, I've built back some of that confidence and we're moving in the right direction. We made bike changes before the heat race and it was a direction that I've been looking for for a while and it's still coming together. Just thankful for the team that I have behind me, they worked their butts off and we'll keep grinding.
Cooper, you said fewer mistakes, but would you also describe this as you having greater determination? It's just like you refuse to lose.
Webb: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I was necessarily the best rider tonight, but I put myself in a great position and you just can't give up. I think that's kind of always been my approach is to never give up. I felt really good at the beginning of the race. I got into second and obviously I'm aware of my surroundings. I knew Jett was coming and you could kind of hear him and I was just trying to kind of lock in and I knew he, like, we made a little bit of…like he tried the inside. I was going outside in the sand and I felt him and the crowd went crazy. So I'm like, 'Oh, man, he fell.' So that's when I knew, like he's either gonna get up and come after us or, this is my chance to try to kind of catch Chase and I locked in. It was tough because you could go out there and do a great lap and, you know, maybe catch your competitor a second and then you could lose a second the next lap by missing a rhythm. So you had to be smart. I feel like I was just doing my laps consistently trying not to make mistakes. But, you gotta go fast, too, and that's where it's tough because that's where you wanna go fast, but you can push it and make mistakes. It was just staying consistent, put myself in a good position, like you said, I never give up. You never know what can happen.
Would you say it's more physically taxing or more of a mental challenge?
Webb: Yeah, a little bit of both, right? It's always physical. We're pushing a new level I feel like right now. So it's definitely physical but you get to a point, at least for me, where you try harder and then you get worse a little bit. So that's where you almost get the old saying, slow down to go faster and I think that was a little bit of what you had to do, was just push where you could jump the rhythms every lap. Try not to make mistakes, get clean laps, get away from the lappers. These types of races, they're always physically demanding but I think at the top it does become a mental battle for sure.
Cooper, we saw you jumping over the wall out of the sand. Did you do that in qualifying earlier today?
Webb: No, I never did it all day. I looked at it on track walk and I thought it was doable. I think me and Jett were getting close. I saw on the site lap, if you went outside, there was an opportunity. And so it was really good until it wasn't, you know? The lip went away and then that's where I struggled because I didn't really have too good of a backup plan there. It did get a little sketchy a few times when I clipped it. I thought I was going over the bars but, we rode her out.
Just walk us through that last lap and especially that last turn there.
Webb: I knew he was actually really good at jumping through the whoops. I was kind of struggling in that department. I was pretty good in the rhythm before so I kneww if I just clean the rhythms I could put myself in a decent position, and as I was going through the whoops, I kind of wanted to be in the middle that way, in the second or last turn, I could kind of dictate where he went. I just knew, straight up, for the next turn, if I'm kind of dictating on the right side, I can either run him wide or cut tight or whatever I need to do. And I think he, you know, about halfway through [the turn], I heard him shut off. I kind of thought he would try to dive in the inside, which I would assess he was thinking that. So I was like, 'Hey, I'm just gonna hug the bales.' He can't get inside! [Laughs]
Sexton: I didn't even know it was last lap. I didn't see the white flag come out but I looked at the tower and I saw zero seconds left. So I'm like, well, this is probably it. So I was really good [in the sand]. Obviously, I wasn't good there in the beginning of the race, but I was good in the sand [at the end] and I came out of the corner where I stalled, it went up pretty much into the tough block, lost some time there. And then I was good on the on-off. Coming into the sand, I caught him and then I just, I nailed the rest of the track, but he did too. And then in the whoops, I was good at jumping. I was good over that wall and he went to that second rut and I was like, 'Okay, I'm gonna go outside and cut across and ….I can't cut across.' I got next to him, and then I was just looking for any opening I could get in that last corner, but there wasn't much there. He pretty much sealed the deal there. I went around the outside but you ain't passing somebody in this class on the outside like that at the last corner. I tried my best but ended up coming up short.
Chase coming this season you were pretty vocal about the switch from Honda to KTM and just trying to get comfortable on the bike and still struggling with it through the first couple of rounds. But it seems like you felt more comfortable, and obviously tonight you were going really fast. Are you happy with where you're at now, and is it kind of a relief now that you feel good on the bike and now that you can push for wins?
Sexton: Yeah I would say there hasn't been these huge discoveries, it's just been slowly getting better every week. Also, me being able to ride and do my motos and not really be interrupted. That's been helping, but also just coming along with the bike and getting to know it more, but also making changes and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. I would say last weekend I rode good, but I still wasn't all there and then this weekend was even better. So if we can keep making small increments every week, there's not gonna be these huge changes where like all of a sudden, oh, it's there. It's just slowly getting better and better. It's not easy making a switch. Not that I thought it was gonna be easy, but I didn't really plan for how big of a switch it was gonna be. The team's been doing a great job and I've been trying to stay patient, but it’s not easy when you're a rider. So just getting better and better and trying to get back up into the front.
