Cycle News

Cycle News 2019 Issue 07 February 20

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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SUPERCROSS ROUND 7 / FEBRUARY 16, 2019 AT&T STADIUM / ARLINGTON, TEXAS P62 MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS iii My Own Race: 3 ELI TOMAC 12TH 450SX Eli Tomac led the championship just two rounds ago, but a sixth place last weekend followed by a 12th this weekend has set him back in the championship chase considerably. He led early in Arlington, then fell while running second and never recovered. "To- night is a tough pill to swallow," Tomac said. "I know the team and I expect better results but I am grateful to be leaving Dallas healthy and without injury, especially after my tip-over in the main. This is part of racing, some things are out of my control and other things are completely manageable as well as fixable. I still have a lot left in me and I plan on proving that, starting next week in Detroit." 16 ZACH OSBORNE 22ND 450SX Zach Osborne (Rockstar Energy Husqvarna) made his 450SX debut in Arling- ton and showed a lot of promise, qualifying fourth overall only to crash out of contention while trying to pass Eli Tomac for seventh before the halfway point. He dropped out of the main a few laps later. "All-in-all, it was a decent day for my 450SX debut and there are some positives I can take from it," Osborne said. "The result is obviously not what I wanted—I'd like to be top-10 or top-five coming back—but right now I think if I can get a good three or four weeks under my belt and really grind some motos in, I think it would be good. I've been riding for eight days after six weeks of injury and I feel like I've got a lot left in the tank as far as me being comfortable and being able to go out there and just hammer laps. I think prior to today, the most laps I've done in a day was something like 35, so it's a big jump to today's 55 or so." 23 CHASE SEXTON 3RD 250SX EAST Chase Sexton showed a lot of promise in Arlington. In his second season of supercross, he was the only guy putting pressure on Austin Forkner early in the main before a stall and a fall cost him. Still, despite the mistakes, he grabbed his first podium. "I kind of struggled all day long, trying to just find a flow with the track," he said. "The track was pretty difficult. It was a little slick and in some parts tacky and rutted. We made a lot of bike changes today. That main event, it was there. I had what it took to win that race, just two small mistakes. Right about when I made my mistake is when I was like, 'I've got to make this hap- pen.' I had five minutes to go. I came into that corner and I don't know what happened. I had the clutch in, ready to hit the corner and stalled it. Then I crashed on a different wall jump—so a stall and a fall on the wall jumps, they got me tonight." 26 ALEX MARTIN 8TH 250SX EAST "Practice went well; I qualified sixth again, like last week- end," said Alex Martin (JGRMX/Yoshimura Suzuki) of his day. "I was really happy with my riding and passed into third place in my heat race. I double-clutched off the start and came out just inside the top-10. I was up to eighth on the second lap when [Mitchell] Oldenburg cleaned me out in a left-handed bowl turn. I struggled to get going again and salvaged an eighth-place finish. I'm not happy with the end result, but I'm feeling really great on the bike."

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