Saturday Night Live: Breathing Room

Sexton was strong in another runner-up position. In his heat race, he got collected in the second turn and had to fight back through the field. He did avoid going to the LCQ though. Off the start of the main event, Sexton was about fifth, but when he had made his way into second, the #18 was too far ahead. Sexton’s blazing fast lap of 51.795 on the sixth lap of the eventual 24-lap main event was the fastest lap of the race. The result may look similar on paper, but this was a strong ride by the 2023 450SX Champion.

“I think, yeah, I had a little bit more of my normal speed,” Sexton said in the post-race press conference. “I haven't really had it all year. So, I feel like I'm kind of coming into form and it's been a trying year. It's been a lot of learning. And, yeah, I feel like I've grown a lot and it's made me better.”

“Yeah, trying to get better with the team and it's been a tough journey, but also made me a lot better,” he added.

A late-race charge by Jason Anderson bumped him from fifth to third after passes on Eli Tomac and Cooper Webb. Only the third podium of the season for the veteran, this was his ninth top-five finish of the season—and third consecutive.

“I just wanna be up here on the box, you know,” Anderson said on his move on Webb in the final turn. “And I don't… it's tough because, you know, Coop's always been a straight up dude and, I think it's cool to see him still fighting for titles like this late in his career. So, you know, kind of bummed that it was him, but at the same time, I wanna be on the box.”

Pair Lawrence’s win with Webb’s fourth-place finish, and the 450SX rookie has a 12-point gap on the two-time 450SX Champion with two rounds remaining. You know Webb will take this thing down to the wire, giving it his all until the final checkered flag waves in Utah. Next week's penultimate round is going to be big for the championship one way or another!

Tomac came home fifth about 15-seconds back from the #18. The Colorado native had a few mistakes in the later stages before pulling off his eighth top-five finish of the season.

Justin Barcia battled with and bested Hunter Lawrence. The #96 was making a pass on Barcia late in the race in the whoops when his feet came off the pegs and he couldn’t stop for the turn as quickly. I believe he made contact with the #51 machine, accidently, and it seemed the GasGas rider agreed as he high-fived his younger competitor after a quick chat on the side of the track after the checkered flag waved.

"We had a good practice today, qualified P10 and I was quite happy with that because we were within a second of the leader, so that was cool,” Barcia said in a post-race press release. “Heat race, it was good, but nothing spectacular. In the Main Event, I came out top-five on the start and rode really well, then got a little tight in the middle. At the end – or really from the mid-stages of the race – Hunter [Lawrence] was on me and we had a really good battle – it was like the hardest fought sixth-place battle ever! I'm really happy with my ride, even if not so much the result. We're on the up and up, the bike was extremely good today, and I'm looking forward to the last two races in supercross and onto the outdoors."

Malcolm Stewart, Dylan Ferrandis, and Justin Cooper rounded out the top ten, with Cooper stealing tenth on the final lap from Dean Wilson after a long, three-way battle between the two and Benny Bloss.

"Philly was definitely new for everybody, very challenging dirt, but I enjoyed it," said Stewart. "The fans were awesome this weekend and we actually did alright. The Main Event was okay, because I made some mistakes, but pulled it back around and we ended up P8. It's not the result we want exactly, but I rode good and that's all that we can ask for at the end of the day. There are some things we could clean up, so I look forward to the next races and the whole Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing crew have done a phenomenal job – we'll keep giving it everything we've got."

In the 250SX race, it looked like things were going to work out perfectly for local Pennsylvania native Seth Hammaker to claim his home race win. P2 overall in qualifying followed by a holeshot and strong heat race win followed by a holeshot in the main event…you could not have scripted a more perfect day in front of #43 friends and family. Second-place Max Anstie had a few better lines—specifically the sand section and the triple jump then blitzing the whoops line—that allowed him to take over the race lead. Hammaker was running a strong second until an ill-advised move from P3 Jalek Swoll took both riders out of their podium spots. Swoll was using the triple jump line into the sand turn while Hammaker was not (he was leading and did not pick up that the guys behind him were doing it), and Swoll almost ran directly into Hammaker a lap before when his triple line took him from the inside through the middle and right to the outside of the sand turn. Well, Swoll pulled the trigger on the triple jump again, and this time he sent his Triumph TF 250-X directly into the side of Hammaker’s KX250. Hammaker eventually came through seventh, Swoll eighth. After the race, Hammaker held his head high through the incident.

“A couple laps to go, me and Jalek had that incident and, yeah, that was a bummer situation and listen, like stuff happens, it’s racing,” Hammaker said. “I was just kind of shocked that he came off the track and he was like, blaming me. He was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ Like, I kind of was shocked by that and I think emotions are high at that point right after the race and it is what it is. And he did end up coming over and apologizing for that. And, I said, listen, like it's a racing incident. Everyone makes mistakes. I make mistakes. And, you know, it sucks that happened. I feel like both of us could have been on the podium, but let's move on, you know, and we got more racing coming up and we're both riding really well.”

Swoll was riding really well, indeed. The #33 just picked up his first career supercross win—also Triumph Racing’s first heat race win—in a very impressive ride. Then, the run-in with Hammaker while they were both in podium position cost Swoll a shot at his second career main event podium.

This was the talking point from the 250SX main event. The move knocked them both out of a podium spot. 

Swoll posted the following on Instagram after the race:

Out front, Anstie anticipated there was some carnage due to how the crowd was reacting. Still, the Honda rider carried on and clicked off laps. Then, Pierce Brown had a big crash of his own that cost him the third-place position. Brown got cross-rutted up the face of the finish line jump and had to eject off his bike before landing on the side of the landing as his bike landed in the whoops section. Until I saw the replay, I thought he had crashed in the whoops but that was not the case! Luckily, he appears to be okay for now, as he did actually get up and finish. He came through 14th.

Through all the chaos, championship rivals Tom Vialle and Haiden Deegan battled one another and the rest of the field as they worked their way from outside the top ten. At the end of the race, as Anstie took the checkered flag, Vialle was only 1.11 seconds back! Anstie claimed his second career 250SX main event win.

“Man, I know you Philly crowd were cheering for Seth… It was so loud,” Anstie said. “It was crazy. I heard the crowd going wild and then I looked back and he wasn't there, and I don't know what happened. But man, obviously it was an exciting race. We needed this, my whole crew: Firepower, Yarrive my boss is over [from Australia], Marty [Davalos]; we've had a great couple of years, and we needed this this week. They've had a bit of rough week so [I’m] proud to give it to ‘em. I'm happy to get this done and looking forward to the final round in Salt Lake in a couple of weeks.”

Vialle now leaves the eighth round of the nine-round 250SX East Region Championship with a 15-point lead with just the Dave Coombs Sr. East/West Showdown remaining. But we all know what wild things can and have happened at showdowns…

“I didn't think about it yet, so I have to go home and think a little bit,” Vialle said on his approach being conservative next weekend. “But, no, when I come to the race, I just wanna do my best and of course, you can do on the last one, stupid mistake or try to do stupid stuff, but I'm just gonna do my own race. I'm a bit of starting this weekend because I was pretty, pretty far in the main event and, no, I think I'm gonna go to the last one and just try the best as I can.”

While there is still a chance Deegan wins this title, he is focused on testing for the upcoming AMA Pro Motocross Championship the next two weeks.

“Yeah, these next two weeks since the point wise, it kind of depends how your week’s gonna be, but I gotta start getting ready for outdoors,” said the second-generation rider.  “That's what we're coming to do next. And with such little time after supercross, when you have these two weeks to work on stuff, you gotta go get some outdoor testing and get the bike good. So, the plan is to go get some outdoor testing in.”

Deegan was latched onto the rear fender as Vialle was making his way up the field, but it seemed like every time Deegan would be right there for a pass attempt, Vialle would make another pass and put a different rider between the two.

“Yeah, definitely. I got behind Tom a couple of times and it was like, Tom would make a pass and I just stuck by the guy and then I'd get around that guy and I'd get right back to Tom and then another guy and, I was like the best chance for me to try and pass,” Deegan said. “Tom was…when he got behind Pierce because Pierce is a good rider. So, he's very hard to pass. And I was like, just give me my chance to try to get around Tom, but Pierce ended up making a mistake and Tom stuck right under him and Pierce went right in front of me. I was like, damn it. [Laughs] But, yeah, I mean, overnight overall it was, it was good, you know, we got on the podium. We're in, we're out and clean, we're, you know, we're safe and we're just continuing to keep learning.”

Behind Deegan was his teammate Daxton Bennick and then Honda HRC’s Chance Hymas, who rounded out the top five. Two solid rides from the youngsters. Coty Schock brought home sixth ahead of Hammaker and Swoll then Preston Boespflug earned a new season/career-best ninth. Nick Romano came through tenth, then Gage Linville finished a career-best 11th. Kyle Peters was 12th in his first AMA Supercross main event start since the St. Louis SX in April 2022! Brown came home 14th as mentioned and rookie Casey Cochran finished 17th in his third career 250SX start.