Race day Feed - Utah

USA MX 2014

www.racerxonline.com   Aaron Hansel

This is it. The final round of the 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship takes place today, and the biggest story by far is the battle for the 450 National Championship between Red Bull KTM teammates Ryan Dungey and Ken Roczen. It seemed like the title fight was all but over when Roczen stretched the lead out to twenty points last week in the Indiana slop, but that was before the rain came down yesterday and thoroughly drenched the track here at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. The track crew has responded (the consolation races, or LCQs as they are commonly called, have even been cancelled to allow more time for track prep), and while it’s surprisingly sticky in some places, it’s still pretty soft and slippery in others. The track will break in some during qualifying, but no matter what, there will be deep ruts and gnarly sections today, which injects a bit more mystery into a championship picture that, up until a couple days ago, was a foregone conclusion. 

The Results

250 Moto 1

Whatever caused Jeremy Martin to fall off the pace last week in Indiana in the second moto after wrapping up the title in the first was not in affect here in Utah, as the Yamalube Star Racing Yamaha rider was firing on all cylinders. Or should we say cylinder? In any case, he won the moto by a large margin, although his teammate, Cooper Webb, didn’t make things easy on him early on. Speaking of Webb, after getting passed by Martin he continued to charge and took second by a mile over Blake Baggett. Musquin kept Baggett honest most of the moto, and toward the end it looked like he might even mount a charge on Baggett, but it just didn’t happen. Rounding out the top five was rookie Chris Alldredge, who’s been riding very well all day. Jason Anderson and Joey Savatgy were both running three and four early on but ended up fading, with Anderson taking fifteenth and Savatgy ending up in eighth. Christophe Pourcel retired from the race early. We haven’t learned why yet but we’ll let you know as soon as we do.

250 Moto 2

With the final gate drop of the season came the last holeshot of the 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, which interestingly enough, turned into Joey Savatgy’s first holeshot of the season. He was quickly passed for the lead by Jeremy Martin, however, who flat disappeared and absolutely dominated the moto. Savatgy showed some spark though and battled guys like Marvin Musquin and Cooper Webb pretty hard, but ended up sliding back to seventh. Still, a good finish for Savatgy. Musquin also slid backward a bit after holding off Justin Bogle and going back and forth with Webb, and eventually fell pretty to a charging Blake Baggett. After pulling off in the first moto Christophe Pourcel didn’t start the second. He said he was fine and the bike didn’t have any problems, but that he was dealing with other issues that he left unnamed.

450 Moto 1

The first moto of the day got going with a Trey Canard holeshot, with Ken Roczen, Ryan Dungey and Eli Tomac following as Canard started to gap the field. The lead four stayed pretty close, with Roczen yo-yoing back and forth between Canard and Dungey. At one point Roczen had pulled out a decent gap on Dungey, but he went off the track after making contact with a lapper who crashed right in front of him. That allowed Dungey to close back up on Roczen and the two battled hard, with Tomac within striking distance. Something happened to Tomac out of view that caused him to lose touch with the battle, and Dungey was able to eventually pass Roczen. But then Dungey got held up big time by a lapper, which allowed Roczen to get back into the lead and the battle for second was back on. When it was over it Dungey was able to lock up second quite a ways behind Canard, who’d lapped all the way through tenth place.

450 Moto 2

The final 450 moto of the year started with a small pileup before the pack even reached the first turn. Andrew Short, Chad Reed and Fredrik Noren got together and all three went through a repeater banner and down the side of the raised start straight in what looked like a pretty brutal crash. Up front it was Canard out front again followed by Roczen. Dungey started a few positions back but quickly sliced through Tomac, Sipes and Metcalfe. Before long he’d moved into second past Roczen, but Canard would not be caught and roosted to a perfect 1-1 on the day. Roczen would eventually get passed by Tomac and ended up just cruising for the entire second half of the race to safely secure the 450 National Championship. The ride of the day belongs to Noren, who charged all the way back up to ninth after starting way back. Credit also to Mitchell Oldenburg who took tenth, his best career finish.

Utah 450 Class Overall Results
1. Trey Canard (1-1)
2. Ryan Dungey (2-2)
3. Eli Tomac (4-3)
4. Ken Roczen (3-4)
5. Brett Metcalfe (7-5)
6. Ryan Sipes (9-6)
7. Andrew Short (6-12)
8. Fredrik Noren (10-9)
9. Weston Peick (13-7)
10. Justin Brayton (12-8)

450 Motocross Championship Points 2014 
1. Ken Roczen, 532 
2. Ryan Dungey, 518 
3. Trey Canard, 468 
4. Brett Metcalfe, 334 
5. Eli Tomac, 319 
6. Andrew Short, 302 
7. Weston Peick, 290 
8. Josh Grant, 259 
9. James Stewart, 226 
10. Fredrik Noren, 207

Qualifying

Slick and muddy conditions greeted the riders as they rolled out for the first qualifying sessions of the day, which ended up not meaning a whole lot since times were so much faster in the second session due to a drier and broken in track. Tomac was fastest in this session, followed by Canard and Roczen. Dungey ended up eighth fastest with a 2:13.799, roughly nine seconds slower than Tomac. Josh Grant retired early from this qualifier with what looked like some sort of bike problem.

In the second qualifier Trey Canard was fast immediately, roughly five seconds faster than everyone. The time stood for several laps without anyone getting close, but the track kept getting faster and faster and Roczen was able to edge Canard by a couple tenths. Eli Tomac would end up fastest though when he finally got a clean lap in on the final lap to log a 1:57.313. Perhaps the most impressive time of the session came from Fredrik Noren. Check it out in the times below!

In 250 action Jeremy Martin was incredibly fast in the slop. Even his second-fastest lap was faster than everyone else by a good margin, but things changed in the second, drier qualifier and a game of musical chairs erupted when rookie Chris Alldredge started launching a quad that nobody was doing and was rewarded with the fastest time, only to see Musquin, then Martin log faster laps. Of course, it was only a matter of time before Christophe Pourcel dropped the hammer and took the fastest time. His time did get beaten though—by Pourcel himself on his final lap when he laid down a scorching lap that was in the 1:53 range.