MOTOCROSS
LUCAS OIL AMA PRO MOTOCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 12 / AUGUST 27, 2016
IRONMAN RACEWAY / CRAWFORDSVILLE, INDIANA
P72
250MX
During his rookie campaign in
MX, Monster Energy Pro Circuit
Kawasaki's Austin Forkner has
had a lot of success, including
winning a moto a few weeks
back. The trouble he was hav-
ing, even at events where he
was successful, was putting
two motos together, which isn't
an uncommon thing for rookies
such as himself.
In the sloppy, muddy and
tricky conditions at the season-
finale, Forkner managed to keep
it together in both motos to take
his first-ever AMA National win.
In moto one, Forkner got out
front early while his strongest
competition suffered trouble in
the early going. Forkner led Troy
Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM's
Mitch Oldenburg, Pro Circuit
teammate Joey Savatgy, Yama-
lube Star Racing Yamaha's Alex
Martin and the rest of the field
in the early going. Aaron Pless-
inger rounded lap one at the
tail end of the top 10, and newly
crowned champion Cooper
Webb was even farther back
than that.
While Forkner pulled away in
the early going, Oldenburg gave
way to Savatgy and Martin as the
pair diced back and forth fight-
ing for second place—a battle
that Savatgy would eventually
win—and Webb had two unchar-
acteristic crashes that limited
his late-moto run to land in fifth
place, while Plessinger—suf-
fering similar issues—ended up
eighth.
In moto two, Forkner again
got the start, but this time Pless-
inger was right there with him
and took over the lead from the
rookie immediately. Webb, Adam
Cianciarulo, Martin, Arnaud
Tonus and Savatgy gave chase
behind them. Tonus went down
late on the first lap and remount-
ed 35th.
Before the end of lap two,
Plessinger made a costly and
uncharacteristic error in a rut-
ted corner—where he usually
excels—and nearly went down,
which allowed Forkner to close
back up on him and make a pass
for the lead. Plessinger stayed
as close as he could to the
rookie from that point out, while
they both managed to pull away
from Webb. Around the halfway
point, Webb crashed for his
third time on the day, allowing
