Been a long season of Chase Sexton essentially saying they're still not all the way there with his Red Bull KTM, but progress continues and looked measurably better at the Monster Energy AMA Supercross finale in Salt Lake City. Sexton finally (for the first time all season!) collected the fastest qualifying time of the afternoon, then rolled it right into a heat race and main event win at night. That's a big breakthrough for Sexton, who had only won one race this year, in the mud at San Francisco.
On the other end, one of his friends and training/riding partners, Tom Vialle, did get to celebrate a championship with the 250SX East triumph. Their other training buddy, Levi Kitchen, came oh-so-close in his chase against RJ Hampshire.
We talked to Sexton after the race during Vialle's title celebration.
Racer X: That’s your guy, right? You ride with Tom and all that.
Chase Sexton; Yeah, that’s my guy. I am proud of Tom, I was a little nervous after the heat race, I was like hmm…
Do you see each other much during the day?
Oh yeah, all of the time. My motorhome was so far away at this one that I kind of hung out in the semi.
And your schedules are close enough to where you can see each other?
Yeah, I get done right after he does so we have that lull in between. So, one of them (Vialle) did it, and Levi (Kitchen) he honestly rode really well, just didn’t get in the right spot. It's so hard when you have guys that you have to beat and he gets a better start on this kind of track. So we’ll go back to work. It’ll be good for outdoors, Tom will be good.
You’ve got to be stoked, for you, this was much better.
Yeah this has been coming for about three rounds, starting in Philly and then going into last weekend I had a good ride I just fell twice. And then today I topped it all off. I needed a race like this to get my confidence back to where I needed it to be. Coming into this race I knew I could win, I just needed to go out there and do it. My starts were good today so that’s good.
Starts are the last piece. I know that with elevation things are different, but is there something you can say like, “Okay, we figured that out too.”
Starting before Denver, I switched my technique a little bit with my feet, getting them up faster, and I had a good start in Denver but I just fell in the first turn. And then today I kind of risked it for the main, I started in second gear which I hadn’t done all day. It worked out but it could have been ugly. It was good, starts were good, riding was good. The track was hard to push on in the main event. Like I had a good pace going but there really wasn’t much to get out of it, I just had to ride good laps. Honestly JCoop (Justin Cooper) rode really well, like, he was ripping! So yeah, it was cool and I felt good.
Did you say doing outdoor testing opened up some stuff that you learned for supercross?
Yeah, after St. Louis I did outdoor testing and that’s kind of when we started getting the bike better. I took a lot of stuff from outdoors. The shock that I’m running outdoors I am actually running in supercross, obviously different settings. We took a lot of stuff, even some stuff from MXGP and (Jorge) Prado, took that and put it in my supercross bike. So, it worked out. We’re still not all there but we are definitely a lot closer. I am able to ride how I normally can now. That’s the biggest thing.
So, some momentum going into outdoors?
Yeah, I need it. I need to put up a fight, better than I did last year. I feel good though, my riding has been good in outdoors.
Hey, unfortunately for you, no supercross [championship] hangover this time. But, at least you can come into outdoors ready to go.
No, I am ready to go. I’m fresh. I feel like the last two weeks I have been really motivated and fresh and I am ready to go. Should be good.
