Chase Sexton Finds His Groove, and Jo Shimoda Hammers Down at Washougal

“I just tried asking too much. Once I got up I tried getting into a flow again and I wasted two laps and Eli was already gone, he was riding fast,” Lawrence said in the postrace press conference. “Trying to get that flow back, I’d pull him in then hit lappers. But I’ve had a really good run, and you can’t win everything. Winning always comes to an end at some stage, so I’m happy with a second, and to have at least rebounded in the second moto and get that win.”

As good as the first moto was, the first ten minutes of the second moto were exponentially better, with Jett, Hunter Lawrence, Sexton, and Tomac all running up front, bunched together, and setting a frenzied pace. Unfortunately a red flag came out, prompting a restart, and when the race was back underway, Jett would eventually take control, although afterward Sexton admitted he didn’t want to push it because he knew he had the overall in hand.

“We had a really good pace going and obviously Eli was right there so I didn’t really have any room to back off. Then Jett started upping the pace so I decided to go with him and see what we could do,” Sexton explained. “We started to get a little gap. At this track, when you’re going up against someone as good as Jett, it’s going to be hard to even think of a place to make a pass. So I decided to cruise back and bring it home. It would be stupid to go down. I’ve done that once this year in Dallas, going for a win when I didn’t need to, and I made myself look like an idiot. Today I wasn’t going to do that.”

When asked if he thought he’d be winning this quickly after coming back at RedBud, Sexton admitted the win came a little sooner than he anticipated.

“I’d say I’m a little ahead of schedule. Last week I got beat by 48 seconds in the second moto, and I feel like that was a pretty big gap to bridge. I made a lot of bike changes this week with the whole rear end of my bike, and they were for the better. I had a really good day on Wednesday, kind of getting back to where I feel like I can compete for at least a race win. I feel like I’m ahead of schedule. The whole goal was to get myself to where I can go after it for SMX. That’s kind of why I came back when I did. It feels ahead of schedule. There are so many good guys, so when you feel like you’re on, you have to make it work. That’s what I did today.”

Tomac ended up third overall, which is a big step forward after going 6-9 for seventh overall at Spring Creek. Afterward he credited big bike changes for his improvement, although big changes were also the reason he struggled at Spring Creek.

“I was changing the fork and the shock, wholesale bike changes, just to try to find a different feel,” Tomac said “That’s what happened before Millville. We were taking some serious swings at motorcycle setup to try to be better.”

Both Sexton and Tomac also referenced the gnarly roost riders encounter at Washougal.

“This track is really hard to follow people. You don’t want to just sit on their rear wheel because it’s like getting hit with a paintball gun for thirty minutes,” Sexton said.

“I ate plenty of roost today. In the first moto I had a rock hit me before the big triple and I thought I might have broken my collarbone. It was bad,” Tomac said.

Hunter Lawrence rode well today, but he wasn’t quite on the same level he was last week at Spring Creek. He went 5-4 for fourth. Behind him was RJ Hampshire, who took fourth in the first moto and was battling with Hunter for fourth in the second before he slid out and went down.

In 250 action Jalek Swoll kicked things off with a holeshot, but went down after about a lap. He was slow to get up and it looked like he may have hit his head. He eventually rejoined the race but was black flagged out of medical concerns. Swoll’s crash put Ryder DiFrancesco in the lead, but he and Haiden Deegan came together in the air when their lines converged. Deegan kept it on two wheels, Difrancesco didn’t, and just like that, Deegan had the lead. Jo Shimoda gave chase and at one point even closed on Deegan’s tail, but Deegan turned up the heat and checked back out.

Dilan Schwartz was incredible in this moto. He held third for most of the race before Garrett Marchbanks was able to get by him late in the moto. Austin Forkner had a great moto too, finishing fifth behind Schwartz.

In the second moto it was the Jo Show. Shimoda took the lead from Hammaker, who’d holeshot, and that was that. Shimoda sprinted away, and before you knew it, he was absolutely gone. Deegan, who’d started around tenth, was able to fight his way up to second, but by the time he made it that far there was no point in even trying to go after Shimoda, who eventually won the moto by nearly 20 seconds. Afterward Shimoda said he’d been doing sprints to try to increase his aggression early in the motos.

“During the week I try to put down some sprints at a fast pace,” Shimoda said. “I’m trying to find better lines early, which Haiden is really good at, actually. I really need to look around and have better lines I guess.”

The aggression worked, and afterward Deegan acknowledged that Shimoda’s lead wasn’t worth trying to erase.

“After a few laps I was struggling with bike setup and I was like, ‘It’s not worth pushing.’ I’m here to win championships, right? I thought the best I could do in that mot was get to second, so I put my head down and got to second. When I got there Jo was like two sections ahead so I was like, ‘It ain’t worth it.” We tied on points for the day so we’re chillin’.”

Taking third, and his first Pro Motocross podium, was Marchbanks. The Monster/Energy Pro Circuit rider was the fastest qualifier in the 250 Class and was riding great all day. He nearly passed Hammaker late in the second moto too, but decided to back off and make sure he didn’t throw away the overall podium.

“There were two or three laps to go at the end and I tried to make a move and had a pretty close one in the back. I was like, ‘You know what? I have a podium, it’s my first one, I don’t want to be an idiot and try to send it for third,” Marchbanks said. “I know that sounds kind of bad, but for me I haven’t been this close in a long time so I took the small win. I mellowed out the last lap and a half. The podium definitely feels great. Through my whole outdoor career I’ve never had an overall podium. I’ve never had a moto podium until Thunder Valley this year. I’ve always been super close. I’ve put in a lot of hard work since basically Arlington and it feels good to show all the work is paying off. I wish it would have started paying off earlier in my career, but it feels great to get it done for them [Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki], especially since they gave me a second chance. I’m happy to do it for them and for myself.”