Barcia Wins in the Mud: Supercross Rd 14

450

Justin Barcia Credit: Feld Motor Sports Inc.

Round 14 of the Supercoss season in New York aka East Rutherford was very chaotic. From all the injuries pre-race to the 250 East-West showdown to the huge rainstorm that delayed the event and made both main events a mudder. Lets start with the pre-race practice and qualifying that led to multiple injuries. The big one of these obviously being the championship points leader Eli Tomac. In practice Eli Tomac went over his handlebars and appeared to land pretty hard on his knee. It was on the first lap of the first practice session and he sat out the rest of the practice session after that. Tomac did walk away from the wreck but with a very noticeable limp. Tomac was able to come back out for the second practice session and put down some laps but there was a huge question mark on Tomac the whole night. Other notable crashes in practice were Adam Cianciarulo and Aaron Plessinger and both would result in them sitting out the rest of the event.

So the rain was not an issue in the heat races last night. Roczen had some good battles with Webb but came out the victor in the first heat race and Chase Sexton checked out on the rest of the field on the dry track to win the second heat race. But then in between the heat races and the main events, the thunderstorms rolled in. The event ended up getting delayed for about an hour due to lightning and when they went back racing it was still raining and the track was a complete mess. Ken Roczen got the holeshot in the main, while Chase Sexton followed behind for about half a lap when Justin Barcia undercut him in a turn causing Sexton to fall off his bike and into the mud. Had it been any other conditions, Sexton likely wouldn’t have wrecked but in the mud he fell and struggled to get the bike back up and fell back to 8th. This would obviously have big championship implications.

Roczen led for almost half the race when Barcia was able to reel him in and get around him pretty easily when Roczen came up on some lappers. Regardless of the lapped traffic though, Barcia was getting around Roczen one way or another. Justin Barcia then checked out on the rest of the field and dominated the race. It almost looked like Barcia was racing against a bunch of kids, as Barcia seemed to be the only rider still jumping basically every jump on the track while most of the other riders were just riding over a lot of the jumps due to how much mud there was. Justin Barcia lapped every rider through 5th place in the race and was 42 seconds clear of Chase Sexton in 4th place. The only rider that was even reasonable close was Eli Tomac, who was 14 seconds back in 2nd place. Tomac spent most of the race in 3rd place but with about 1/4 of the race to go he also reeled in Roczen and was able to get around him for 2nd, in what could be another big pick up in points towards the championship.

After Chase Sexton’s win last week in Atlanta and Tomac’s 5th place finish, the title race seemed to be wide open again. Heading into this weekend, Tomac was in the lead in points with Cooper Webb 6 points behind in 2nd and Sexton 17 points behind in 3rd. Now while it was an outside chance for Sexton being 17 pts behind with 4 rounds to go, a few more wins for Sexton and a few more average finishes for Tomac and he would’ve been right back in it. Then you take into account that Tomac wrecked in practice and was hardly able to walk, this championship battle could really be blown wide open. But in the end Tomac gutted out a huge 2nd place which gives him an 11 point lead over Webb and a 21 point lead over Sexton. With just 3 races left in the supercross season, Cooper Webb still has a shot but he has to start winning or just hopes Tomac wrecks in a main event. For Sexton at this point being 21 pts back, he has to hope for bad luck from both Tomac and Webb, which I just don’t see happening. Even if something was to happen to Tomac, Webb is just so consistent that he will keep grinding out results. But….you never know.

450 Heat 1 Top 5

  1. Ken Roczen

  2. Cooper Webb

  3. Justin Hill

  4. Colt Nichols

  5. Kyle Chisholm

450 Heat 2 Top5

  1. Chase Sexton

  2. Jason Anderson

  3. Justin Barcia

  4. Eli Tomac

  5. Benny Bloss

450 Main Event Top 10

  1. Justin Barcia

  2. Eli Tomac +14.472

  3. Ken Roczen +25.396

  4. Chase Sexton +42.642

  5. Cooper Webb +1 Lap

  6. Shane McElrath +1 Lap

  7. Kevin Moranz +1 Lap

  8. Benny Bloss +1 Lap

  9. Justin Hill +1 Lap

  10. Dean Wilson +1 Lap


250 East-West

Max Anstie celebrates his first ever win Credit: Feld Motor Sports Inc.

Shout out to Max Anstie for winning the 250 East-West showdown. I’m going to say that not many people, or actually probably nobody, had that predicted going into tonight. Starting out with the heat races and when the track was actually normal, it was RJ Hampshire who took home the victory in the West and Jo Shimoda on his return from injury getting the win in the East. Rather surprising that neither of the Lawrence brothers picked up the heat win but everybody knew they would be the names to watch in the main event.

In the Main Event, Max Anstie got the holeshot and led the whole race. But it wasn’t without some tense moments. Near the end of the race with about two laps to go, Jett Lawrence had worked his way up to within striking distance of Max Anstie. At one point I’m pretty sure Jett may have even edged in front of Anstie for a split second but was unable to control the bike and couldn’t make the pass stick. In the final few turns Anstie was clear and would easily go on to win his first ever supercross main event. Jett who should’ve had easily finished second, had a rather difficult time getting it across the line. When Jett gave it one last shot to try and get around Anstie in the 2nd to last turn, he got really loose and lost a lot of speed in the next straight. Despite RJ Hampshire being a mile behind Jett going into the next turn, Hampshire went full send and ended up comically taken both himself and Lawrence out. Lawrence was able to get back on the bike and just barely beat his brother for 2nd place. Hampshire’s bike was lodged into the ground with so much mud that he was unable to get it back up and ever get it over the line. He some how finished 13th. In the video below, the clip of Hampshire wrecking in the final turns starts at about the 45 second mark. I have to say it is absolutely must watch.

250 West Heat

  1. RJ Hampshire

  2. Jett Lawrence

  3. Max Vohland

  4. Pierce Brown

  5. Enzo Lopes

250 East Heat

  1. Jo Shimoda

  2. Hunter Lawrence

  3. Haiden Deegan

  4. Jordon Smith

  5. Chris Blose

250 East-West Main Event Top 10

  1. Max Anstie

  2. Jett Lawrence +10.091

  3. Hunter Lawrence +10.824

  4. Max Vohland +11.324

  5. Enzo Lopes +14.812

  6. Haiden Deegan +15.832

  7. Carson Mumford +17.575

  8. Cullin Park +32.124

  9. Jo Shimoda +33.449

  10. Chris Blose +34.778

Thanny, Supercross, SportsThannySupercross, new york, east rutherford, Justin Barcia, Eli Tomac, Chase Sexton, Ken Roczen, Max Anstie, Jett Lawrence, Hunter LawrenceComment