Chase Sexton gave it everything he had. He had to.
“I wanted to win tonight, that was the goal,” said Sexton after a close second in Pittsburgh. “Unfortunately, I put myself in a bit of a tough situation. I knew I had to pretty much win every race. From, I think two races back, I had to win all five to win it on my own and not have any help. So yeah, it's a bummer not to get tonight done. I feel like I've been riding really well, especially in the main events. I think in my career, I think I've had speed all day, and I've lacked it in the main event. And these last five or six races, I feel like I've really turned it around and have just felt better riding in the main event, more loose, more able to think clearly.”
For Sexton, it’s not the close second in Pittsburgh that hurts as much as the must-win scenario he put himself in earlier in the season. Webb is a rabid dog in these pressure spots, and Sexton beating a proven two-time champion five-straight times is a tall order. Sexton was happy with his riding. He just couldn’t crack Webb.
“I've been doing a lot of work during the week off the bike with that [late race pace]," he said. "So, it's been helping and I think for me tonight, I still rode a great race. I didn't I didn't really make too many mistakes and it was just a dog fight. I put a lot of pressure on Coop! And normally I think everybody I race has made mistakes under that pressure and he didn't. And that goes to show how good of a just how good mentally he is and how good of a rider and racer he is.”
Sexton’s biggest advantage was his early-race speed in the whoops, but he couldn’t keep blitzing the whole way.
“I don't know if you guys saw them, but they [whoops] were pretty mangled,” said Sexton. “It took a lot of energy to skim. I wanted to see if I could run similar speed jumping them and save myself a little bit. I feel like I could have maybe got through them all main event skimming him and not crash, but you're running that risk of having a big one. So I started jumping. I made that one mistake. I was following Coop jumping him, and when he got on the gas he roosted the crap out of me, and I just couldn't see anything and jumped off the track, basically. So other than that, I feel like I was pretty good at them. Once I got a flow doing it, I felt like it was just as fast, you kind of had to figure out how to do it. So it's just one of those things, the risk versus reward.”
Webb was handed a decent lead after Sexton’s off track excursion, but he then made a mistake himself and Sexton closed right back to him. Passing was tough, though.
“I had that one mistake, but I was able to kind of regroup and catch him again,” said Sexton. “I felt like I had really good speed, it was just, when he got that holeshot, I knew it was going to be hard to pass, and I knew the whoops were going to be a big part. I just couldn't get close enough to make a pass.”
Webb’s win changes the math, as now if Sexton wins the final two races Webb will still emerge as champion if he can reel off two runner-up finishes. Sexton no longer controls his own destiny. Even Webb knows, however, that anything can happen in racing and this one is not ofer.
“Congrats to him,” Sexton said to Webb. “Like I said, every race I want to win. Between him and I, we might we might hate losing more than anybody else. So it's tough. But we get another chance next weekend. Anything can happen, but I definitely need help.”
