The points chase in the
450SX division is heating up.
Coming into Oakland, the top
three racers—Eli Tomac, Chase
Sexton and Cooper Webb—were
separated by a mere four points.
The start to the 450SX main
event looked like a carbon copy
of last week in Tampa as Chase
Sexton executed the start and
got off to the early lead. It's no
secret that the Honda HRC rider
wanted to right his wrongs after
crashing out of the lead just a
week ago.
"The most important shot is
the next one," he said on social
media. Unfortunately for him,
the wrong keep coming.
Sexton led with ease for the
first 12 laps of the race until
disaster struck again. He had
opened a 5.506-second lead
when he got spat sideways in a
short whoop section and was
flung off the motorcycle in a
near-360 spin.
"I wish I could tell you what
happened," Sexton said. "I had a
two-wheel slide and there was
nothing I could do. It happened
so fast there was no saving it.
After that it was tough to get in
a flow."
He would remount in second
after Tomac slipped by. With a
few laps left, Sexton dropped to
third after Cooper Webb caught
VOLUME ISSUE FEBRUARY , P53
got back up in fifth, passed back into
fourth, and on the last lap fell again
and ended up in fifth. It's not the night
we needed, and I'm pretty upset
about it."
21 JASON ANDERSON
5TH 450SX
After being slapped with a six-month
probation/warning by the AMA for
"overly aggressive riding" with a
run-in with Justin Barcia last week
in Tampa, Jason Anderson had to
be on his best behavior in Oakland.
Anderson rode well, but a minor fall
kept him out of podium contention.
"We were in the battle for the podium
again tonight, but a small tip-over
forced me back a few positions,"
Anderson said. "I'm happy with the
recovery after the mistake. I need to
clean up those little errors if I'm going
to contend with the guys at the front
end of the pack."
MYOWNRACE
Cooper Webb made
things close at the
end, finishing 0.881
seconds behind
Tomac. One more lap
might have spelled a
different ending.
