Cycle News

MOTOCROSS LUCAS OIL/AMA PRO MOTOCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 9/JULY 26, 2014 WASHOUGAL MX PARK/WASHOUGAL, WASHINGTON P44 Dungey took the win 13 sec- onds in front of Tomac, who had another 12 seconds on Roczen. Then came Canard and Monster Energy Kawasaki's Brett Metcal- fe, both nearly a minute behind Dungey, and then BTOSports. com KTM's Andrew Short, RCH Suzuki's Weston Peick, Brayton, Honda Muscle Milk fill-in Fredrik Noren, and part-timer Christian Craig, who's filling in at GEICO Honda for the still-injured Wil Hahn. "The first moto, got out front and then I don't know, just like, 'I'm going to drop the hammer. It's time. It's that point in the series. I need to start kicking it up a little bit,'" Dungey said. "And I feel like things are coming together with the bike, consistently. I really felt good with the setup today. And it's a technical track. You can't just hammer the gas on. I think we've struggled, KTM struggled a little bit on the softer tracks, but with this track I think we did a good job with setup and every- thing felt good. I do wake up and say, 'Today's going to be a good day.' I believe in that, and it was, so it was nice." In moto two, Brayton snatched the holeshot again, and once again, Dungey wasted little time moving into the lead, dragging Metcalfe, Short and Tomac with him by Brayton. Dungey got a little breath- ing room while Tomac worked his way by Short and Metcalfe, which took less than a lap. But once Tomac was in second, it almost seemed like Dungey was toying with him. Tomac would get almost close enough to strike, then Dungey would put a couple of seconds between them again. Tomac was pushing hard, though, and with about five laps to go, it looked like Dungey might fall into Tomac's grasp. That's when Dungey put the hammer down, though. Dungey's fastest lap of the moto—a 2:15.253— came on lap 11, just as Tomac started bearing down on him. Then Dungey followed that with another 2:15, and Tomac lost nearly five seconds. "It was almost like an exact flip of last week, because we kind of paced each other for about the same time there, somewhere around 20 minutes," Tomac said. "And then I got a little bit closer to him, somewhere around 20, and then the next lap I had a ter- rible lap. I was like five seconds slower. He did like a 2:15, I did a 2:20. I made some bobbles after the finish line and jacked up like two turns in a row. He must have just railed everything, and that's what just sealed the deal for him because at that point he was able to just lay it down and I couldn't get it back together." Dungey ended the day with a solid 1-1, and took 10 points out of teammate Roczen's points lead, as Roczen finished nearly a minute behind Tomac, and over a minute behind Dungey, in third. "I struggled a bit with suspen- sion settings," Roczen said. "Like every time I went out we tried something different, just to get a little more comfort and stuff. [Scoring a] 3-3 is definitely not where I want to be, but I've got to take it. I want to keep my head up. Nothing is done yet and I definitely can't back down. I've got to make a push. It's definitely good to have an off weekend, though. I think it'll change a lot. And obviously right now I'm not riding like how I did in the begin- ning of the year, so I'm just try- ing to get back there. There are just some sacrifices that I have to Ken Roczen admitted that he's not riding as well as he did in the first half of the season. Third overall was good but it wasn't what he was looking for.

• Cover