We always have questions after every round of the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, but after the Fly Racing Washougal National we were left wondering if things can possibly get any better! There was great racing in both classes, neither of the favorites left with the win, and even the weather was perfect. To get answers to our other questions we tapped former pro and NBC on-track analyst, Jason Thomas.
Washougal is known as a beautiful venue with, typically, lower temperatures. So why does it seem as though most riders don’t like coming here?
This track is a multi-faceted trickster. It comes down to two main factors, the traction and the shadows. Washougal’s hard surface only gets harder and more slippery as the afternoon grows long. Confidence becomes scarce. It’s difficult to find any sense of comfort and the square-edged bumps only add to the hesitancy riders feel.
As for the shadows, the trees that make Washougal so beautiful are also the catalyst for difficult vision. The contrast between bright sunny skies and the heavily shaded areas wreak havoc on riders’ vision and depth perception. It’s simply too dark underneath the canopy for riders’ eyes to adjust at speed. There is a short period where they’re completely blind. For riders navigating bumps and ruts at 30mph or more, it’s very unsettling.
Speaking of the lower temps, it never got boiling hot at Washougal. In fact, a high of 78 degrees was forecasted. How do these more tolerable temperatures change a rider’s strategy throughout the race?
It helps riders in many ways. On the hottest days, the heat is going to take a toll. How much everyone is affected is where the rubber meets the road. To say that the best just don’t feel the effects is inaccurate. It comes down to who can suffer through it, and whether their body will stay in a manageable spot. When it’s mid 70’s, riders can focus more on other things than hydration and managing body temps. The worry of, ‘Am I going to overheat?’ becomes an afterthought. It’s a relief, honestly. The fittest riders likely understand their results would benefit from a scorcher, but they still would enjoy a nice day much more.
During qualifying the times were slower in the second 450 qualifier, but faster in the second 250 qualifier. How can this be explained?
Well, that was only Jett. His 2:10 likely skewed the data here. Sexton dropped into the 2:11’s in the second session which was markedly better than his first time out. I chalk this up to Jett being otherworldly more than anything else. He was two full seconds better than anyone else’s 2:12 in session one, which is abnormal to say the least.
Dilan Schwartz has been showing some real promise this season, and Washougal might be his best race ever, in terms of outright speed. He was second fastest in qualifying and ran third for most of the first moto. Was this just Schwartz on the upswing, or was there something about this track that helped him?
He’s been improving and this was just more of that. His third in qualifying at RedBud was undone by a rock stuck in his chain in the first moto. Often times, a great result is the culmination of progress forward. Dilan was giving glimpses of what was possible and he finally took the next step in the actual result. He’s the real deal. I often hear, ‘What will it take for him to get a factory ride?’ The answer is a big improvement in SX. Until that happens, it will be an uphill climb in that context.
Jo Shimoda built a gigantic lead in the second moto, and he did it quickly. Do you think he kept pushing, instead of settling in with a comfortable lead, because he didn’t want Haiden Deegan to be motivated to chase him down once Deegan got into second?
Yes, this a fair assumption. When you have a force like Deegs, you need to always know where he is. He’s the only rider capable of chasing down Jo with a lead. Once he realized that he had a chance to escape, he leaned into that with force. If he can build a gap so that Deegs relents any chance of getting to the lead, the race becomes much easier to manage. He wanted to diminish any hope for Haiden before it could fester. The mental aspect of racing is so important. By the time Haiden got to second, Jo was twenty seconds up the racetrack, which is an eternity. If Jo had been cautions and been sitting five seconds ahead, Deegs could very well have mounted a challenge. Jo killed any chance of that by attacking at the right time.
What the heck happened in that first moto with Deegan and Ryder DiFrancesco? At one point they were going off a jump, and the next they were colliding in the air.
It was a racing incident but definitely more a mistake by Ryder D than anything on Deegs. That section was tricky, as the trajectories merged a bit. The inside line caused riders to drift left and the outside line sent riders back toward the middle. Ryder D drifted much more than he intended and Haiden was already committed. As soon as Ryder left the face, his likely thought was ‘Oh no, this is going to be bad.’ It’s not any fun to know with certainty you are drifting mid-air into someone’s space. It ended much better than it could have.
Eli Tomac opted to run the scoop tire, while most other riders didn’t. Do you think this decision hurt him or helped him at Washougal?
Eli is committed to that tire. Come hell or high water, he’s running it. He’s familiar with it and his bike is set up for it. I do think it was difficult to manage in the second moto, though. He had to take different lines and certainly wouldn’t be able to be as aggressive as the others. He would have known this beforehand, though, and decided to press on anyway. Bike setup is always a compromise and the scoop tire is no different. Most of his competitors think Tomac is crazy for running that scoop when conditions are extreme, but he makes it work.
Those first ten minutes in the second 450 moto were amazing. Jett and Hunter Lawrence, Chase Sexton, and Tomac were all going at it. What’s the dynamic like when the intensity is that high, and there are four top-caliber riders all going for the same spot?
It’s full sprint, full adrenaline. The interesting part is that Jett and Hunter didn’t want it to go that way. I believe they were very content to manage an easier pace and let the race unfold a bit. That all changed when Tomac closed to Sexton and then Sexton pushed into Jett. When Jett saw Sexton make a pass attempt exiting the whoops, he upped the intensity to an 11 out of 10. He immediately closed to the rear of Hunter and went to the lead. The entire race changed and it turned into a stirred-up hornet’s nest. We will never know what might have happened if the red flag didn’t fly but it was chaos for a lap or two.
With the high intensity mentioned above in mind, how difficult is it to come out of a wild situation like that due to a red flag, then cool down, and immediately go back up to 110 percent?
The important part is to lock back into race mode. It’s easy to let the adrenaline and focus slip while sitting there waiting. I think Hunter might have been caught out by this very thing. He was razor sharp before the red flag and got blitzed immediately on the restart. That first lap is the toughest one, as it’s an immediate sprint at full race pace from a resting heart rate. Anything that veers out of the usual routine is always a guessing game as to who will adapt the quickest.
Instead of going all out to try to catch Lawrence in the second moto, Sexton chose to settle in and bring it home to take the overall. Were you expecting this, or did you think he was going to try to make a statement by going after Lawrence?
I do think he gave it a real go. He wanted to win, I firmly believe that. But, when you realize your push isn’t making headway, at some point logic and lessons learned arrive. Throwing away the overall in an attempt to pass Jett would be a tough one to swallow. He proved that he could match pace with Jett, which is a gigantic step forward from Spring Creek.
