Even though Honda HRC Progressive rider Chance Hymas got his first ever Monster Energy AMA Supercross win at Foxborough earlier this year, Hymas has admitted that his focus has mostly been on the AMA Pro Motocross Championship. That seemed apparent when he came out at Fox Raceway and set the fastest qualifying time by 1.6 seconds. He was then leading the first moto when he tipped over in a corner and it all sort of fell apart from there. In the second moto, he rode well but started way back. Still, he was able to manage 3-6 moto scores for fourth overall and salvage some points. Our Steve Matthes caught up with Chance after the race to get his take.
Racer X: You were great in qualifying, third in the first moto, but a bad start in the second moto kinda did you in a little bit.
Chance Hymas: Yeah, that was definitely a bummer, wheelied right off the start and that was it. I feel like I started, 25th, 20th, I don’t know. Too far back when everyone else started up front. But man, I digged, I think I had like five or six laps in a row where I was fastest on track. I was digging through the pack, I got stuck behind a couple of guys and couldn’t pass them, by the time I got to sixth the gap was closable and I was digging then I had a pretty big moment after the finish line with about two laps to go. I put in another solid lap after that but I didn’t catch them, so I was like, “Ahh just bringer in.” I knew I had fourth overall. It's not where I wanted to be, I wanted to be on the podium at least salvage a podium here. But one position off where I wanted to be this weekend so not too bad. I feel like I did pretty good damage control and will go again next weekend.
First moto obviously you had the crash, but you had the speed all day long.
Yeah definitely, not going to lie I was fighting the bike a little bit in the first moto. I have kind of been going back and forth between settings, one setting is a little too stiff, one is a little too soft. I went to my softer one during Q1, and obviously I did my fast time on it, but I was on the limit for sure.
I was going to ask about that because you credited the team for the change after Q1, but that was more like a send it moment?
It was better than what I had for sure. It's just we have kind of been going back and forth a little bit on the bike, it's a bit trickier than last year. So, I didn’t really have a solid base coming in. I knew I could ride the stiffer stuff and be solid, the soft stuff was kind of like give or take. When I was riding in Florida it was just a little too soft and it was beating me up a little bit. Obviously here with all of the square edge stuff I kind of gambled on it, went for it and it was beating me up the first moto. I was sprinting and it was beating me up, I was like, “Man this is going to be a long moto.” Then I just cross-rutted and tipped over. Then I was kind of fighting it and I kind of got in a good groove at the end of the moto and I caught a second wind last five laps. I was putting in a good effort, started catching Jo [Shimoda] a little bit. We made a change, not a super big change, just changed the forks a little bit. It was better, but obviously starting 25th, anything was going to work at that point you are just digging going forward.
It's a credit to you too, because it seemed like you had to go far inside or far outside, what were you doing to make passes?
Squaring people up, running them off the track a little bit.
It was hard to pass, right?
Yeah, 100 percent. Especially when you get behind someone that you’re only like a second faster than and they are going just fast enough. A couple guys in front of me were taking some cheater lines. A little bit of bullshit there.
The rollers after the finish?
There was one after the finish line, the left before the mechanics area there was one there. A guy went inside the berm right in the middle, inside and inside roller. So, I kind of yo-yoed there. Once I got passed them, I caught Seth, passed Seth and like I said I wasn’t quite fast enough to get there. I basically did a 30-minute sprint. The problem was once I got up there those guys were just gone. So, I did what I could.
So first outdoor of the year, what do you need to work on? Bike? Physical?
On the physical side, body side I feel really good. Byrner’s [Michael Byrne, trainer] got me dialed in, we’ve got a solid program that way. In regard to the bike, we’ve got a lot of testing this week, we need to dial it in a little more. I’m staying out here this week, obviously a lot of the teams rent out a lot of the tracks, so I don’t know whether I ride here or Elsinore, but I feel like we’ve got a couple of long days of testing ahead. Obviously, the team's working really hard, I am not talking down on the bike, the bikes really good, but these guys are on third generation bikes. They’ve been on their bikes for a few years and obviously we’re on a new bike this year. So, just trying to fine tune it and just get it to where we have a solid base. So just dial it in this week and hopefully make big strides going into next weekend.
