Round three of the World Supercross Series took place in the Gold Coast of Australia at Cbus Stadium, home of the Rugby team there. The first two rounds in Argentina and Canada saw Ken Roczen and Eli Tomac take the wins. Tomac was a Wild Card entry debuting on his Red Bull KTM and Roczen’s Progressive Suzuki WSX appearances were going to end after this round.
The track in Australia was cool. It had some big rhythms along with a quad that only a couple SX2 guys did and not all the SX1 riders could nail all the time. Also big whoops (and more than nine of them) played a factor. The only negative was the organizers expected some rain to come so they left the clay alone to keep it dry. Then we barely got rain. So that left the track very hard packed and slick, passing was tough to do and the riders struggled to find traction.
It was Roczen taking the overall win with 1-4-3 finishes and they were hard fought at that. Roczen’s second and third main starts weren’t ideal but he made things happen in the back and got to the front, as usual. Roczen flew off the track in the third main off the triple at one point, but overall, he rode awesome. He had great whoop speed though and looked very “Kenny like” all night long.
“Honestly, I got out of the gate good but got wheelspin and I got swallowed up,” he explained after the race about his two poor starts. “Then the first turn was so tight and so slippery that even if you come in okay, people were sliding into you. In the second one, I had to roll the whole section, I felt like I was going parade lap speed. I just had to sit there.
“I felt like I rode like garbage,” he explained when he stuck in the back. So then he got going. “The last one I was pissed to be buried, I saw Eli (Tomac) up there and I know I was tied with Coop (Webb) for the overall so I had to go.”
Roczen said he accidentally tapped his rear brake and almost went down, and that’s what led to his off-track excursion. He charged forward and did enough to get the overall on a day where every rider had good and bad moments.
“I come around before the triple, my boot hit the brake and I cased the crap out of the triple, I went into the tough blocks, Webb and (Vince) Friese got back by,” Roczen explained about that scary off track excursion. “I came closer and closer to Tomac and I was going to go after Haiden (Deegan) but it was two laps to go and I knew I had it. I’m really riding well, maybe the best I have in a long time.”
So Roczen moves into the points lead with two rounds to go but he’s exiting the series to get enough prep in for the AMA SX that’s starting in January. His teammate Colt Nichols will be taking his spot. When asked why he’s leaving, the WSX people say he couldn’t come to an agreement with his team…but people on his team deny that. So, yeah, whatever. Roczen said leaving the series after a few races has been the plan for him the whole time.
Second overall was maybe the story of the night with Quad Lock Honda’s Christian Craig going 3-9-1. His ninth would’ve been much better if he hadn’t fallen twice including in the last turn. In the WSX series though, the third main event is worth much more (the standard 25-22-20) than the two sprint races (10-9-8 etc) so CC’s win was huge for his second overall.
And he earned it! Craig didn’t holeshot and check out or anything like that, no, no. He moved from third to first, passing Haiden Deegan and Eli Tomac in the process. He pulled away from there, unchallenged, for maybe his most impressive ride since he was on a 250F for Star Yamaha. Cool to see, Craig’s been riding very well at all the first three races of WSX, and this was his best yet.
“Shoutout to Brad Hoffman (Star Yamaha General Manager) for the meeting,” said Craig, regarding an internal moment with his old team. Clearly that has given him some motivation. “I’ll never forget that one, so beating one of his his guys is the cherry on top” Craig said with a smile after passing and pulling away from young Deegan.
“I’m in a good spot, stoked and having fun. I know this is WSX but I’m beating some really good guys, some champions. It’s coming around, I was a tick off of Kenny and Eli first few rounds. To catch and pass Eli it was like, okay! Let’s go! It was fun all night.”
Craig was, to this reporter’s eye, the fastest in the whoops all night (side note: I told Roczen this and he disagreed, he as Kenny says he was the best through them. I’m not going to argue with an all-timer so we’ll just say him and CC were tied?) and was very good on then slick turns. Can he bring this speed into the AMA series? Well, not sure he’s going to win races but hey, almost just finishing near the top five will be better than his three years with injuries in 450SX.
Webb got third overall and he did what Cooper Webb does which is get better all night. In talking to him before the night show, he wasn’t stoked on the hard slick dirt nor the set up on his bike. He qualified “ok” and then took an unexpected win his SX1 sprint 2. Then again, this feels like the 1000th time Webb has only been “ok” in qualifying, didn’t look like anything special, and then busted out a win.
Tomac and Deegan were big headliners as Wild Card riders.Bboth had some ups and downs during the night. Eli spun a 360, he stalled, and he struggled in the whoops as they got worse and worse. Not sure if he ran his beloved paddle tire or not but that couldn’t work that well out there. Either way this wasn’t as successful as his first race on the KTM a few weeks ago in Vancouver. Deegan got a runner-up to Craig in main 3 but also crashed out in Sprint 2 and was pretty “loose” at times. When you think of Tomac and Deegan, they’re pretty throttle happy and this type of dirt isn’t great for them. Also, outside of maybe Glendale, they won’t have to deal with this stateside much.
Shoutout to Quad Lock Honda’s Joey Savatgy who had some ups and downs but the ups were qualifying quickest on the day and then backing it up on the four-man Superpole contest right after that.
In SX2, Max Anstie took his GSM Star Yamaha ride to three more sweeps making himself a perfect nine for nine in SX2 through three rounds. He did lose the Superpole contest when he, like what Roczen would do later, exited stage left on the triple. So does that constitute a loss in the perfect season? I say no, others say yes. You guys can decide.
Anstie rode maybe the best in the third, longer main, as he had to reel Shane McElrath in. You could only push so hard out there and Max had a gap to close, which was going to be tough. He jumped the quad while Shane did not, he was quick in the whoops and got by for the win. McElrath got second overall and MCR’s Cullen Park was third and got it the hard way as Park’s starts were never very good. Park has been riding well in the series thus far, though.
Two races remain in the series, Roczen is now finished, so Craig is technically the “active” points leader now, as he sits second in the standings behind Kenny. Savatgy is next, and Jason Anderson had a rough night in Australia and lost some points to the Quad Lock Honda teammates.
