Washougal is awesome. It’s always been awesome, and ever since I was a kid looking at photos of it in Motocross Action, I wanted to go there. First chance was 1996 and I don’t think I’ve missed one since then. Great scenery, great area, fresh air and hey, I don’t have to ride the slippery, shadowy track, you know?
To be fair, they removed some trees to help out with the shadows and they also dumped some sand into the soil (along with really soaking it Saturday morning) to help with the traditional slick feeling. Not sure it totally worked, but more than the shadows and the slickness, it was the heat that got to the guys. Very hot temperatures and with the 250’s going second, you could see a lot of those guys, in those temps, with the roughness of the track, feeling it out there.
I don’t want to say Chase Sexton’s most recent 1-1 (seven moto wins in a row now!) was easy but to me, it looked rather easy. It was hot, the track was rough, and Aaron Plessinger (Moto One) and Jason Anderson (Moto Two) were both leading, and it’s not like Sexton decided to dig deep and hit warp speed, he just kept the speed he had and wore those guys down. Sexton was just “doing the laps” out there and used his speed and fitness to win again. It wasn’t balls-out Sexton-speed by any means.
So, like I said, it was maybe easy? Or as easy as two, 30-minute-plus-two, motos can be on a 65-horspower 450 in the heat, I guess? Anyway, I asked Sexton about the win and if it was, again, relatively speaking, easy.
“Yeah, this one was actually harder, I feel like. I haven’t been feeling very good the last few days. Today was a grind. I woke up obviously not feeling great, but I was like, ‘I got to dig today.’ It’s obviously the last one before the break, but I didn’t want to give any points away so I had to dig deep.”
Okay, maybe not so easy!
I guess the one thing that didn’t go Chase’s way were the starts. “My starts are shit, dude. My starts aren’t good. It’s just plain and simple.”
I wouldn’t call them shit, but they’re not as good as they can be, that’s for sure.
The year 2024 is the one that saw Aaron Plessinger get his first ever 450SX win and man, he’s been close to his first ever 450MX win also. He led 13 damn laps in moto one and it took Sexton longer than I thought to get going. AP got his third career runner-up spot with 2-3 finishes with a great ride. I thought Ian Harrison, who said to us on PulpMX Show a few weeks ago that Sexton and AP’s bikes couldn’t be more different setup wise, was right. At least to me watching it. Sexton’s bike seemed high in front and very busy out there while AP’s bike was smoother and more in control. They both made it work on the rough Washougal track in their own ways, but funny to watch them go one and two, be on the same bike, but yet look totally different.
Justin Cooper is three points up on AP for third in the points, and may the best man win from here. Have to think Cooper’s got the edge at Unadilla but AP has it at Ironman, right? It’s funny to look at their season stats so far, thanks to MX Reference on Twitter, and see how similar they are:
Points
JC32 - 284
AP7 - 281
Average Overall Finish
JC32 - 4.38
AP7 - 4.38
Overall Podiums
JC32 - 3
AP7 - 2
Average Moto Finish
JC32 - 4.63
AP7 - 5.00
Moto Podiums
JC32 - 6
AP7 - 6
Laps Led
JC32 - 41
AP7 - 29
Last week right here I talked about the battle for the third spot in the 450MX class and how Cooper and Plessinger had been battling over it, for the most part. But I mentioned that I still believed Anderson could be a guy to grab it. Washougal is a good track for the New Mexican rider, and this was the third year in a row he’s made the podium there. So, a rider that seemingly is big on “vibes” had to be feeling full of “vibes” going into the race. He actually passed Hunter Lawrence right off the bat and led nine laps of moto two which, checks notes, was almost double the amount he had led coming in. Good day for the #21 and the Kawasaki team.
Three races ago, Hunter Lawrence had the points lead (although by a slim margin) and now, Sexton has this thing by a whopping 28 points. That’s pretty staggering, really, and in Washougal, it sure looked like the grind was catching up to Lawrence. He did set the fast time and was second early in moto one but man, he just slowly slipped back and had his worst race of the season so far. No one needs this two-week break more than Lawrence.
We were talking about this being Hunter’s rookie season in the 450 Class and based on past comments from riders, it seems the week in and week out grind does get to you. Suddenly you have to race double the supercross races before you even get to motocross. We had Andrew Short on the Moto:60 show Thursday and he wasn’t having it, however! I don’t know, it seems like a thing to me and it’s obvious that Lawrence doesn’t have the same speed and fitness as earlier this summer. Don’t tell Shorty that though!
I was a little worried, again, about Haiden Deegan’s mistakes in moto one. He’s the best guy in the class but we’ve seen errors lately, and he hasn't been as good lately as he was in the beginning. Then, he crashed early in the first moto. Just like last week! So, maybe he was trending the wrong way? Well, he put that to rest in catching up to Tom Vialle in moto one and then taking off for the moto win the second time out. He had gone 6-3-4 in his last three motos before Washougal, and remember how good he was here last year? Great race for Deegs and hopefully he enjoys the two weeks off, he’s earned it.
Tom Vialle rode well in splitting moto wins with Deegan and he got to second place in the points back as well. Late in moto two he really fell off the pace of Haiden, who showed his superior fitness. Again, it was hot, and riders were really feeling it out there. That first moto was only Vialle’s second moto-win of the year which, 16 motos in, is not what he wanted to do. Still, you have to think Unadilla will be good for him and maybe he can salvage the season with an overall here.
Jo Shimoda rode great in going 3-3, and catching and passing Levi Kitchen in moto two was good. He admitted the heat got to him and he didn’t have the speed of the top two afterward, but hey, he was better than everyone else out there. Solid day for Honda and Jo!
Ryder DiFrancesco came into the season thinking big things. He’s got a lot of talent, he’s a good starter, and he’s on a good team. It was all there, right? Well, except for it wasn’t, as he still got the good starts early in the season but that was about it. 9-12-14-14-18-14 were his first six moto finishes of the year, but he’s kept at it. The team let him ride back in his hometown of Bakersfield (shoutout Ray Crumb!) and he’s been happier, healthier, and is getting better. 7-12-5-4-6 have been his last five moto scores, and he scored a career best fourth overall this weekend.
It's funny right, we think of these guys as adults and all this, but in the 250 class, it’s mostly kids and for some kids, home means everything to them. So, Ryder D’s been in Bakersfield a lot lately with a practice bike, his dad doing the work on it, and riding at the same old gravel pits where he’s always ridden. And it’s working for him. I asked him about that after the race.
“I struggled with moving, but I’m only two and a half hours away. I can only imagine the kids who are even across the world. Just honestly having the family support system, like I have a huge family at home. I have a little niece. As I grow older, I understand that family is nice to be around. Going back home is nice.”
I also admitted that I may or may not have sent some texts to Wil Hahn (TLD trainer) about WTF was going on with Ryder D earlier this year, but he admitted that he was wondering that also.
“I’m honest with myself, too. The beginning of the year I felt good with myself, and then obviously expectations, I didn’t meet them. Now it’s been good. I think I took seventh at High Point, fifth last week, fourth this week. So, if I keep building in this direction I’ll be spraying champagne.”
Cool story here brewing. And his teammate, Pierce Brown, scored a fifth overall which matched his career best (also set at Washougal), so for the Troy Lee Designs Red Bull GasGas team, which may be pivoting away from GasGas next year, this was a great day.
It hasn’t been easy for Joey Savatgy this summer. His best moto finish was the very first one of the year where he got fifth after qualifying second. As I’ve said many times on the shows, 450 guys dropping down to 250s after years on the 450 is a tough deal. You’re older, you lose that mentality of sending it, and it’s just different. I’m not saying you can’t make it work, but it’s not always there for these guys. And for Joey, taking into account that he’s had some mechanicals also, it’s been tough. I have to think that first round, he had the jump on guys because he’d been doing nothing but motocross for a long time.
Anyway, Washougal he went 9-7, which has to be a bit of a win for him lately. My thought of him making the podium or even maybe winning a national seem pretty far away at this point, but who knows? He’s good at all of the three remaining tracks.
Here’s Joey explaining his almost comical first lap of the first moto to me after the race:
“Honestly, I don't think you could have made a scenario for me worse than what the first lap was in that first moto. My start wasn’t great, but I came around the first turn okay. We got over that first jump and before the rollers before Horsepower Hill, and somebody on a Yamaha got cross-rutted and came across and took my front wheel and hit it. So obviously I lost all my drive. I swear I got passed by 12 guys.”
I’m surprised you didn’t go down.
“I almost went down. But then that next lap, a drop down into that left, there was a five-man pileup, but they all shuffled to the inside, so I went outside. Somebody from the inside got whiskey and came into the outside and crashed and then collected me. Then I was stuck like 50-50 on the berm and I couldn’t get unstuck.”
It was quite a lap.
“Dude, I’m telling you. I was like, ‘Okay, it’s not a terrible start…” And in the span of three corners, I was just like, what happened? So, it was tough.”
In talking to the Honda HRC guys, they were saying they weren’t sure if Chance Hymas was even going to race after his take out move on Haiden Deegan at Millville/his foot dab into Deegan’s wheel at Millville. It wasn’t great and if he ripped it off the wrong way, he could be looking at surgery, so there was some risk for sure. Well, Hymas rode great in both motos (last to 12th in moto two!) and salvaged his day. Great work by Hymas there.
Fast Freddie Noren is always good at Washougal. He’s gotten four top ten finishes there before, and this week he went 8-8 on the privateer MADD Parts Kawasaki. You would think a guy from Sweden wouldn’t be good on the hardpack of Washougal—isn’t Sweden mostly sand and stuff? Right? I guess not, as Noren explained to me after the race.
“I do love this place. Actually, the local track I grew up on Sweden is very hardpack, so this track has always suited me. This is kind of not the consistency of the dirt, but the hardpack-ness is pretty similar to what I grew up on, I guess. I’ve always loved coming here. I’ve had good results here before.
“Going 8-8 for eighth overall today is really good. So, the quote of the day was Derek (Rankin, team manager) after moto one. He’s like, ‘What took you so long?’ We’ve been in a little bit of a slump, I guess to put it that way. We’ve had some rough motos, so it’s good to finish off with two solid motos today going into this break. So, I’m happy with that.”
We’ve talked a lot about Noren this summer. We always talk about our guy Phil Nicoletti, and even the Hawaiian Grant Harlan gets some love when it comes to the fast underdogs in the 450MX class, but maybe we don’t talk about Marshall Weltin enough and I think I know why. You look at the points and it’s:
11 | 22 Freddie Noren | 139
12 | 36 Phillip Nicoletti | 125
13 | 79 Harri Kullas | 120
14 | 75 Marshal Weltin | 118
15 | 23 Grant Harlan | 105
So that’s close, but then you look at their average position after the first lap and I see why we don’t talk about Weltin. He’s more than five positions worse than the above riders. So, like, we’re never like “Oh hey look at Marsh with the start,” you know? Nope, Weltin is grinding away from a bad start almost every moto. At Washougal he went 11-9 for tenth overall and he topped it afterward with this interaction as he told me after the race:
“I felt almost sorry that he (Nicoletti) is not okay. I could see him, just the elbows down. He was hurting. He could barely walk after moto one. I want to beat him straight up. I love when I can beat him, but he’s like a big brother to me so it was hard to see him like that. He did give me a hug after moto two. He said, ‘Great job.’ It was kind of like a moment for us. He gave me a hug. I never got a hug. I’ve known him for ten years.”
Ten years and he got his first hug from his friend Phil Nicoletti. What a day for Weltin, and is it me or is it dusty in here?
On that note, we’ll end this column. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to email me atmatthes@racerxonline.com if you want to chat about this race or anything else.
