Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1119655
VOL. 56 ISSUE 20 MAY 21, 2019 P59 decent amount of time fighting for positions in and around the top 10 at Hangtown. AWWW GREAT After a wire-to-wire victory in the first 250MX moto, Justin Cooper ended up getting his YZ250F stuck in the mud on the parade lap for moto two. Although he recovered and made it back to the starting line, his second-moto start was not good (he got the holeshot in moto one) and he had to claw and scratch his way up to fourth, ending up second overall on the day. MY ARSE! Hunter Lawrence made his long- awaited AMA Pro Motocross debut with Geico Honda at Hangtown, and things were going pretty decent in moto one for a while. He was running as high as seventh un- til he went down awkwardly in a rut and was tossed right into the path of his teammate RJ Hampshire. Hampshire attempted to go around Lawrence, but he caught Lawrence right in the right butt cheek with his right footpeg, and that took a little bit of Lawrence's fire away. He re- covered for 11th in the first moto and 12th in the muddy second moto for 11th overall, just beating fellow Aus- sie Husky privateer Wilson Todd, who went 15-9 for 12th on the day. "It was okay, just stayed warmed up and took some pain killers to be ready for the second moto," said Lawrence. "Tough first weekend at Hangtown, but despite the race results I'm happy with where I'm at. There were lot of positives, speed and fitness is there just my starts let me down this weekend forcing me to take a lot more risks on a track with a lot of lines but one main line. I was taking blind lines and just more risks in general, and that's not the best thing especially when it's muddy." STRUGGLE CITY JGR/Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing's lone 450MX pilot out- doors, Justin Hill, got stuck in the gate in the opening moto and still managed 16th, but he couldn't get going in the muddy second moto and ended up 21st in the moto and overall. TREACHEROUS The Hangtown track was treach- erous in both motos. In the first motos, the ruts were stiff, and the track surface seemed to go from very wet and tacky to dry and dusty from section to section. The track crew was avoiding watering the track because they knew rain was on the way, but it had rained at the track on Thursday during Amateur racing, and some of the wet areas were still wet from the previous showers. Then, in the second motos, after the skies opened up, it seemed like almost everyone strug- gled just to get around the track. In the early laps of the second 250MX moto, Martin Davalos, Michael Mosiman, Chase Sexton and more went down. In the 450MX class, it was more of the same. Cole Seely even fell twice in one turn. ANDERSON'S ROAD TO RECOVERY Jason Anderson talked about his long recovery from injury. "Obvi- ously, I got hurt, but the big thing I was waiting on was my arm," he said. "I broke my arm, and then Briefly... Ken Roczen came out swinging at Hangtown, capturing his first win since injuring his arm in January 2017. Jason Anderson returned strong in his first race since injuring his arm early in the supercross season.