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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Kitchen thrilled the home crowd with a dominant night and the 250SX West main event victory. ROUND 11 / MARCH 23, 2024 LUMEN FIELD / SEATTLE, WASHINGTON SUPERCROSS I MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS / SUPERMOTOCROSS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP P74 was the best race I've had in a month and probably one of the better races I've had this year," he said. "In my mind, I should have gotten on the podium. My start was decent, and I went backward in the first couple of laps but started riding well around lap three or four. I got within a sec - ond of Jett at the end but couldn't quite seal the deal for third." Roczen had an up-and-down night. The first down happened in his heat race, when a crash and a stalled engine resulted in having to ride in the LCQ, which was the first time the veteran racer had ever had to ride an LCQ. He won it, of course, but did not have a good gate pick. Still, he managed to get a second-place start but ended up slipping back to fifth by the finish. Former champ Eli Tomac was sixth on the night after getting a terrible start. He held 16th place after the first lap. He's still seeking his first win of the year; he's never gone this long in a SX season without a win. "Unfortunately, in the main, I was a little bit behind at the start and had to make a lot of passes," Tomac said. "I kept going forward, but sixth is what I had tonight. I did my best to keep moving forward and felt good on most of the track, but I was missing one jump—the jump over the wall. I felt like that affected me a little bit from cracking into the top five." Returning from injury, Hunter Lawrence, who won his heat race, finished seventh ahead of Justin Cooper, Justin Barcia and Jason Anderson. "I just tried to get going and get a flow back going again," Law - rence said of his get-together with Webb. Later, Lawrence had an is- sue with a lapper that slowed him just enough to end his charge to the front. "Then had a lapper stop in front of me in a rut," Lawrence said. "I got stuck behind him and stalled it. That was enough signs for me to know that tonight's not the night and just go for third place and bring it home." Aaron Plessinger finished just off the podium in fourth. "Seattle make the pass. I thought maybe he'd go outside across the rut and try to block me, but he went inside, and I tried to square up and get alongside him. He's a smart rider, so I knew he wouldn't fall for that. I just tried to ride as hard as I could no matter the circumstances." Lawrence's modest three-race win streak came to an end with his third-place finish, unable to mount a comeback after going down, though he did get back around Roczen.