Tomac claims High Point MX victory | Lawrence second in 250s

2019 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship

Round 4 – High Point National

Images by Hoppenworld

The Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship made its first east coast stop of the 2019 at the High Point National for Round 4, with High Point having become a Father’s Day tradition, and saw Eli Tomac come-from-behind in both motos to take his second 450 victory of the season.

AMA MX Utah Rnd Starts JK MX HighPoint
AMA MX 2019 – High Point

In the 250s Adam Cianciarulo kept his winning streak alive by capturing his fourth consecutive victory, taking the win with a 2-1 result from Hunter Lawrence with a 1-3.


450 Moto 1

As the gate dropped for the opening 450 moto, it was Blake Baggett who emerged with the holeshot ahead of Cooper Webb, Joey Savatgy and Eli Tomac. With Baggett out front, the defending champion Tomac quickly went to work and managed to cross the opening lap second, followed by Webb in third.

AMA MX Utah Rnd Start JK MX HighPoint
AMA MX 2019 – High Point

Baggett set a blistering pace early in the race as he attempted to breakaway from the field, but Tomac matched his pace and started to inch his way up to the KTM riders rear fender. As Tomac looked to make a move on Lap 4, he made a costly mistake that shuffled him back into the fourth position, allowing Webb and Jason Anderson to slip by.

AMA MX Utah Rnd Jason Anderson JK MX HighPoint
Jason Anderson – AMA MX 2019 – High Point

On Lap 6, Baggett continued upping his pace by breaking into the 2:02 lap times, which allowed him to build a comfortable lead over his championship rivals. Webb began to fall under heavy pressure from both Anderson and Tomac, losing second to Anderson on Lap 7 and third to a hard charging Tomac just one lap later.

AMA MX Utah Rnd Tomac JK MX HighPoint
Eli Tomac – AMA MX 2019 – High Point

Baggett was dominant as he took his first moto victory since the 2017 High Point National, winning by 9.8 seconds. Anderson rode to an impressive runner-up finish, giving him his best moto result of the season. Tomac rebounded to finish third.

450 Moto 2

The deciding 450 Class moto saw Savatgy take his first holeshot of the season ahead of Webb and Justin Barcia. Webb immediately attacked Savatgy heading into turn two, taking over the race lead. At the completion of the opening lap it was Webb, Savatgy and Anderson out front, while first moto winner Baggett found himself buried deep in the pack.

AMA MX Utah Rnd Savatgy JK MX HighPoint
Joey Savatgy – AMA MX 2019 – High Point

Webb put his head down and went to work as he looked to rebound from a challenging first moto, however, Savatgy had other plans as he matched the leaders pace and kept the gap to within a couple of seconds.

Championship point leader Ken Roczen began to find his stride and blitzed his HRC Honda around Anderson for third on Lap 6. Roczen was relentless in his push to the front, muscling his way by Savatgy and eventually around Webb with an inside pass for the lead on Lap 9.

AMA MX Utah Rnd Roczen JK MX HighPoint
Ken Roczen – AMA MX 2019 – High Point

As Roczen quickly opened a lead over Webb, both Savatgy and Anderson engaged in the battle for third, with Anderson getting the upper hand, followed by Tomac in hot pursuit. On Lap 13, Tomac moved himself into a podium position by overtaking Anderson. The final stages of the moto saw Tomac and Webb pull alongside each other several times before Tomac took control of second on Lap 15.

Roczen carried on to his third moto win of the season, by 4.9 seconds ahead of Tomac. Webb followed in third, matching a career-best moto finish.

AMA MX Utah Rnd Webb JK MX HighPoint
Cooper Webb – AMA MX 2019 – High Point

Tomac’s 3-2 effort gave him his second overall victory of the season and the 19th of his career, which puts him into sixth on the all-time list. Roczen’s second-moto win vaulted him into the runner-up spot (6-1), while Anderson finished third overall (2-5).

Eli Tomac – P1

“Today was a unique situation by winning with 3-2 moto scores, I’m not sure if I’ve ever won a race without winning a moto. We did what we could and battled towards the front, so overall the day was good. The track had a lot of good character today, the ruts were plenty deep and the track was rough.”

AMA MX Utah Rnd Tomac JK MX HighPoint
Eli Tomac – AMA MX 2019 – High Point

With the win, Tomac move to a tiebreaker with Roczen in the championship point standings with 176 points apiece. Teammates Osborne and Anderson are tied for third, 32 points out of the lead.

Jason Anderson – P3

“My weekend was good, I came really close to winning my first overall, I got pretty good starts today and I’m happy with the way I rode. I’m getting better every weekend and getting closer to the win.”

AMA MX Utah Rnd Anderson JK MX HighPoint
Jason Anderson – AMA MX 2019 – High Point
Cooper Webb – P4

“Today at High Point was a much better day and a huge turnaround for me. My starts were great all day and I made a few mistakes but I was happy to battle up front like I did. I even lead the second moto for about 20 minutes – I haven’t been able to do that so far this season, so that was awesome. Fourth is my best overall, so it was a good weekend and I’ll keep building from here.”

AMA MX Utah Rnd Webb JK MX HighPoint
Cooper Webb – AMA MX 2019 – High Point
Zach Osborne – P5

“Overall, it was a pretty positive day, we made some good changes to the bike during the week off and they translated to be good today. I just need to improve on my first couple of laps, I have the fitness down on the final stretch, so I feel like I’m in a good position moving forward. I have some good tracks coming up – this was a good track for me but I just didn’t make it happen, I was only able to muster up a 5-4 so overall a good a good day, strong points and we’ll just keep trucking.”

AMA MX Utah Rnd Zachary Osborne JK MX HighPoint
Zach Osborne – AMA MX 2019 – High Point
Marvin Musquin – P6

“It was a tough day. I was feeling great but unfortunately, I didn’t have a good start in the first moto and I couldn’t make good passes right away, so I lost a bunch of time in the first few laps. In the second moto, I went around the outside off the start and was really aggressive and ran into the back of another guy. I was dead last and came back to seventh, so it’s very disappointing because I love that track and I felt pretty good but when you crash on the start there’s nothing you can do. The top six riders were up front and the gap was just too big to catch them.”

AMA MX Utah Rnd Musquin JK MX HighPoint
Marvin Musquin – AMA MX 2019 – High Point
Justin Barcia – P10

“Not the day we wanted, obviously. I struggled a bit getting comfortable with the setup and things like that. We definitely are going to work hard and try to figure it out to be really good for Jacksonville. On a positive note, I had a really good start in the second moto I. I just didn’t have a good, comfortable feeling today overall. We’ve got to regroup and put the not-so-great finishes behind us and move forward into next weekend. I believe that we’ll figure out how to get that comfort and when the time is right, we’ll be right there. All in all, not the best day, but a few positives to take out of it. We have to do a lot of work to get where we want to be.”

AMA MX Utah Rnd Barcia JK MX HighPoint
Justin Barcia – AMA MX 2019 – High Point
Dean Ferris – P11

“Today I qualified twelfth and went 11-11, so I guess that’s where I belonged at the moment. I really struggled to go with the faster guys, which was kind of disappointing for me as I went so well here three years ago. We’ll keep trucking forward and keep trying to improve.”

AMA MX Utah Rnd Ferris JK MX HighPoint
Dean Ferris – AMA MX 2019 – High Point

450 Results – High Point National 2019

Source: MCNews.com.au

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