2022 Monster Energy AMA Supercross
Round Three – Petco Park, San Diego, CA

Report by Trevor Hedge – Images by Jeff Kardas

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450 Heat One

Defending Champion Cooper Webb dominated the opening 450 Heat of the night from go to whoa while KTM team-mate Marvin Musquin gave chase.

Musquin was challenged at times for second place by Ken Roczen but the Frenchman held on and the German had to settle for third.

Justin Brayton had a strong heat race, running fourth throughout and crossing the line less than five-seconds behind the race winner in his first race back since testing positive for Covid.

450 Heat One Results

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450 Heat Two

Joey Savatgy and Aaron Plessinger got hooked up together on lap one and lost a lot of time extricating themselves from each other while on the ground. Savatgy coming off worse and taking no further part in the Heat, the 27-year-old recently tore his ACL but raced Oakland and had planned to race all season but presumingly this incident may have caused further damage that saw him withdraw from the event.

A couple of minutes in Adam Cianciarulo pulled out for some reason, picking up his mechanic and heading back to the pit truck.

Shane McElrath was strong early on before stalling his machine and losing plenty of ground. He recovered well to then battle Malcolm Stewart before finishing in sixth place.

No such dramas for fastest qualifier Jason Anderson. The new Kawasaki signing dominated while Justin Barcia and Eli Tomac battled over second place.

Tomac eventually snuck past Barcia on the final lap to take that second place. Chase Sexton fourth, Malcolm Stewart fifth.

Remarkably, Aaron Plessinger recovered from that opening lap misfortune that put him way behind to claim ninth place, thus earning his automatic qualification through to the Main.

450 Heat Two Results

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450 Main

The riders reported that the track was very tough and the physical effort was clear on their faces after even the relatively short seven-minute Heat races. Thus it was looking likely to be somewhat of a survival of the fittest come the Main, a 20-minute plus one lap test of physical endurance. 

It had already been a testing event for some with Joey Savatgy not making the Main after crashing in his Heat race, hurting himself and then not making the LCQ.  

Adam Cianciarulo retired from his Heat race after hurting his knee when saving a crash in the whoops. He then decided to not race the LCQ and chose to sit the event out, so he was another fancied rider missing from the starting gates.

Everyone got away cleanly when the gates dropped but emerging from turn one with the early race lead was Marvin Musquin ahead of Chase Sexton, Eli Tomac, Cooper Webb and Ken Roczen. 

Chase Sexton made his move on Musquin three-minutes into the race and took the lead. Moments later Eli Tomac pushed the Frenchman further back to third place. Webb was looming large in fourth along with Roczen.  Jason Anderson had worked his way past Dylan Ferrandis to move up into sixth place.  

Roczen slipped past Webb, and a few turns later both of them moved past Musquin, relegating the #25 to fifth.  Up front Sexton led Tomac by 2.4-seconds and Roczen was now starting to close on both of them. 

Jason Anderson then pushed his way past Webb in the whoops to move up to fourth place. With 13-minutes remaining on the shot clock Sexton led Tomac by 4.5-seconds.  Roczen was now looking to challenge Tomac but then made a mistake in the whoops which allowed Anderson to get up the inside of him and close off his line, putting Roczen on the deck, briefly, but long enough for the German to be demoted all the way back to eighth. 

With ten-minutes left Sexton’s lead was now six-seconds over Tomac. Jason Anderson then closed in on Tomac and made short work of the #3 Yamaha to take second place and then left Tomac in his dust. Anderson was on fire but Sexton had almost a seven-second buffer with less than nine-minutes to run.

Just after writing that he was on fire, Anderson’s Kawasaki started smoking…The KX450F was now losing power and Anderson was losing places as he tried to bring the bike home and salvage some points. His team pit-board saying ‘as long as you can’, indicating to him that he should still try to make the chequered flag. 

Due to Anderson’s misfortune, Tomac was now second, Ferrandis third, Webb fourth and Malcolm Stewart fifth.  With four-minutes left on the shot clock Sexton had an eight-second buffer over Tomac. 

Chase Sexton went on to take his maiden 450 victory in dominant fashion.  

Eli Tomac came home second while Dylan Ferrandis managed to stave off a late charge from Cooper Webb to claim the final step on the rostrum. 

Malcolm Stewart fifth ahead of Aaron Plessinger while Ken Roczen salvaged 16 Points for seventh after that costly earlier incident. 

Justin Barcia eighth while Jason Anderson gently coasted his smoking machine home to ninth.  Marvin Musquin rounded out the top ten ahead of Justin Brayton. 

After the event AMA officials then sanctioned two riders. Justin Bogle and Justin Barcia had been conducting some argy-bargy in the event. Barcia tipped Bogle over early on, then when he came around to lap Bogle later in the Main, Bogle punted Barcia off the track.  Barcia was penalised one position, dropping him from eighth to ninth in the official results, while Bogle was disqualified and thus loses the single point he had scored in the Main.

Three different winners in the opening three rounds, and with only 14-points covering the top ten, this is the closest AMA Supercross has ever been three rounds in. 

Barcia arrived in San Diego with the red plate but leaves in fourth place. While Eli Tomac leaps from sixth into the championship lead! 

Jason Anderson was second on the points table but tonight’s machine problems saw him relegated to sixth.

Chase Sexton’s victory catapulted him from ninth right up to equal second with defending champion Cooper Webb, both of them now only a single point behind new championship leader Tomac. 

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450 Video Highlights

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450 Main Results

450 Post Race Press Conference

450 Championship Standings (Round 3 of 17)

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250 Heat One

Hunter Lawrence won his heat race from Garrett Marchbanks and Chris Blose.   

Carson Mumford had led early on before slipping to fourth as the race progressed. 

250 Heat One Results

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250 Heat Two

Christian Craig took out the second Heat in a race that was significantly faster than what we witnessed in the opening Heat.  Both Craig and second placed finisher Michael Mosiman recorded mid-high 48s, a second quicker than what the first and second place finishers had recorded in the opening Heat. 

250 Heat Two Results

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250 Main

A huge melee at turn one saw championship leader Christian Craig get tangled up with Jo Shimoda which also brought down Ryan Surratt, Garrett Marchbanks, Chris Blose and Robbie Wageman.

No such drama for Michael Mosiman though who took the holeshot and immediately started to pull away with a clean track in front of him.

Hunter Lawrence was quickly up into to second, Carson Mumford third and Nate Thrasher fourth.

Thrasher moved past Mumford to take third place five laps into the race while Craig was scything his way up the field after that turn one incident, already up to tenth place at that juncture.

By half-race distance Craig was up to sixth. A couple of minutes later he was fourth…

Up front Hunter Lawrence was keeping the pressure on Mosiman but the GASGAS rider was holding on. The gap was rarely any more than a second, despite plenty of lapped traffic.

Both Mosiman and Lawrence then made a mistake in the whoops, Mosiman baulked by a lapper, and then Lawrence got crossed up and hit the back of Mosiman, both of them almost going down but Mosiman remained upright to come out the other side of the incident with a 3.5-second advantage over Lawrence with a minute plus one lap remaining in the race.

That essentially looked to have decided the race, Mosiman had the breathing space to cruise home but then lapped riders came into the picture once again! Mosiman got tripped up by a lapper once again but Hunter did not have quite enough left in the bag to get the better of Mosiman before the chequered flag.

Christian Craig pushed Friese off the podium on the penultimate lap in what was a spectacular recovery from the back of the field. Crossing the line only 25-seconds behind the race winner.

Jo Shimoda also did a great job of damage control to finish fifth place.

And that winner was Mosiman, the 22-year-old taking a historic first win after leading the entire race from holeshot to chequered flag.

In the championship chase Christian Craig retains the lead in the 250 West ranks, Hunter Lawrence only gaining two-points over the Star Yamaha rider to now trail by six-points.

The win promoted Mosiman up to third in the standings, five-points behind Lawrence, and eight-points ahead of Friese.

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250 Main Video Highlights

250 Main Results

250 Post Race Press Conference

250 West Championship Standings (Round 3 of 10)

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Source: MCNews.com.au