What we learned from Round 1 Pro Motocross
The opening round of Pro Motocross went off yesterday with no shortage of excitement, crashing, and drama. There are some great story lines entering the season and we’ll have to watch closely to see how they play out. The race was at Fox Raceway in Pala California. With a number of athletes already missing multiple rounds in both classes the championship rivalries won’t be the same with the field thinned.
Photo Credit: MX Sports Pro Racing, Inc.
450 Class
The main storylines were is Jett going to dominate again this season and can he sweep the rounds in back-to-back years? With Tomac missing a few rounds and Roczen also there are two primary challenges that could steal Moto wins when they get back, but will miss too many points to challenge for the season points lead. The only remaining challenger that most feel is Chase Sexton and there are a lot of questions with him on a new Bike/Team this year and his mental focus. Does he or can he get the bike figured out fast enough to challenge Jett or will his psyche take a hit if Jett stacks multiple wins on him early in the season?
In Moto 1 Sexton got a bad start and was running out of the top 10 and had to work his way back up to fourth place. While Jett and Hunter got good starts and ran up front. Chase got a much better start in the second moto and the top three were Jett, Hunter, and Chase and they all were running with small gaps between them. Chase was able to pass Hunter for second and put some pressure on Jett for the lead, but was never able to make a legit attempt at a pass. It looked like Chase had the needed pace and was pushing Jett and could not find a place to make a move or force an error by Jett and it ended with Jett going 1-1 on the day and extending his moto win streak to 24.
A few questions and thoughts that we will keep an eye on this season.
Do we even know how fast Jett can really go? He seems to be a master of going just fast enough and always finds a little more when needed.
Would Hunter actually pass Jett for the lead if it came down to it and break his win streak?
Chase looked good if he can dial in the KTM to his liking we may get some interesting racing this year.
Will it irritate others more if Hunter is consistently on the podium with Jett?
250 Class
The news leading into the weekend was wild. We saw Kawasaki announce that Hammaker and McAdoo would not be racing round one as they both had practice crashes and were not ready. Add to that RJ Hampshire had a bad crash in press day and broke his wrist and will be out an unknown amount of time. These guys were all threats to win a moto and RJ was definitely capable to putting together a legit run for the title. This left three athletes with the highest chance at making title runs and we saw all three of them on the podium in the 250 class. There is a little drama to add to the storylines and keep things from getting too boring. We know part of the reason Levi left his old team is he wanted some space from the Deegan show and Haiden seems to be constantly trying to get under Vialle’s skin. So its going to be great seeing these three battling each weekend for the wins.
We saw Vialle get penalized a spot in moto one for speeding on the side of the track. While Haiden was off the track several times in moto two but no penalties were assessed to him. This caused the final results to be delayed while the AMA reviewed a protest against Deegan to see if he would be docked any points or spots.
All Photo Credit: MX Sports Pro Racing, Inc.