Pro Motocross 2023 RedBud MX National Round 5 & Combine

The first week of July always brings the Pro Motocross series to Redbud MX in southwest Michigan for the annual Independence weekend race. Typically marking the halfway period of the outdoor season and the favorite race of the season for most fans and riders. This year would be the 50th anniversary for RedBud making it an even more special occasion. The track brought back the original start configuration after running the updated layout for the past several years. The classic start was a favorite of Gene Richie the trach founder. This round was sponsored by FMF making in the FMF RedBud National.

The weather was overcast in the morning with a few random raindrops made for decent temperatures that did not last. The clouds eventually broke up and the sun made an appearance driving the temps up and it felt like a normal blazing hot RedBud race weekend.

Moto Combine

The weekend also included the Moto Combine where on Friday along with Media Day the fans are allowed to get a view of the next round of talent soon to be trying to qualify in these pro national races. Unfortunately, a couple of Illinois hopefuls were not able to line up for Moto 1 of the combine due to earlier crashes. Talazon Zollers had a practice one crash a broke his arm and Krystian Janik was rumored to be out due to injury also. We saw Casey Cochran dominate the field with some shuffling of the spots below him in the top 5 between the two motos. These names should be very familiar to those that follow amateur motocross and watched the 2022 Loretta Lynns Amateur Nationals last year with these youths battling for wins there last summer.

Casey Cochran (P1/P1)
Ryder McNabb (2P/P3)
Preston Boespflug (P5/P4)
Enzo Temmerman (P4/P6)
Drew Adams (P3/P8)

250 Class

The 250 class most years is the warm-up to the premier class each week but with all the injuries and other commitments thining out the 450 class, the lites class is primetime this season. The first moto started out like many others with Hunter Lawrence grabbing the holeshot and riding it to a victory, but he was not without challenges. As Hunter Deegan was hot on his tail from the start and throughout most of the moto, finishing a close second place. Unfortunately, Jalek Swoll had a crash that took him out of moto one. The second moto was looking like a replay of the first one but a first-turn crash by Hunter took him out of the race with a shoulder injury. Leaving the rest of the field to fight it out for a moto win and who can capture the top step on the podium. Levi Kitchen grabbed the lead off the start and never looked back, he had some close competition but never a real battle for the lead with him grabbing the moto two win. Haiden ran second for nearly the whole race only to fall back to third place getting passed by Vialle late in the race.

Haiden Deegan (P2/P3)
Levi Kitchen (P7/P1)
Justin Cooper (P4/P4)

450 Class

The main question for the weekend was is the Jett Lawrence victory tour going to keep going strong or would the return of Chase Sexton or someone else be able to bump him off the top of the podium or at least snag a moto win? That was not the case again this week as Jett kept his winning streak alive grabbing the holeshot in both motos and securing the overall win with two moto wins for the weekend. The Ty Masterpool story keeps going strong with him having a pair of great starts being just behind Jett in both starts and while not finishing on the podium still showing what he is able to do. Coming back from a practice crash and bought with Mono Sexton looked like himself with a pair of strong starts and second and third-place finishes for the third overall position. The one that surprised me the most was how strong Dylan Ferrandis looked he swapped places with Chase in the second moto securing him the second overall spot. He had strong starts and battled hard through both motos looking more like the champion of a couple of years ago.