Round Two – Glendale – 450 Main
The opening round of AMA Supercross for 2019 at Anaheim saw competitors battle muddy conditions. For round two in Arizona conditions were fine and clear as they were under the roof of the State Farm Stadium at Glendale, despite that the track still certainly presented its challenges.
Some fireworks had unfolded earler in the heat races when Dean Wilson and Justin Barcia had some stern words with each other after the pair clashed in Heat Race One. That opening Heat was one by Marvin Musquin ahead of Cole Seely.
Chad Reed qualified 11th before finishing second in his Heat to Justin Brayton, and thus the Aussie legend was promoted straight through to the Main. Ken Roczen qualified P9 and finished eighth in his heat race to narrowly qualify for the Main without having to endure LCQ.
Malcolm Stewart rode strong at the series opener and that form looked to have followed him to Arizona with third place in his heat race. Unfortunately the 26-year-old crashed heavily 15-minutes remaining of the 450 Main which put him out of the running. The fall was heavy and caused the race to be stopped while Ken Roczen had a handy lead over Anderson and Musquin. Stewart was later diagnosed with a broken femur.
Roczen would rue the race being stopped as he had scored an amazing holeshot in the first attempt at running the Main and looked as though he was running away with it.
Jason Anderson didn’t really fire at the A1 season opener but the reigning Supercross Champion looked to have a lot more fire in his belly. Some judged that to be too much fire in his belly when the Husqvarna man made a hard pass on Roczen that took the German down.
The Honda man managed to remount and salvage third place after being passed by Anderson, Baggett and Musquin while he was on the ground. Roczen got back past Musquin for third but his challenge for the win ended with that pass by Anderson. To help offset some of that disappointment Roczen can take heart that he now leads the 2019 AMA Supercross Championship on 44-points.
Jason Anderson was rounded up by Baggett in the closing stages of the race and the KTM man then went on to walk away from the defending champion to an almost easy win. Anderson gave up the fight as soon as he was passed by Baggett, electing instead to take a safe P2 and the 23-points it came with. Anderson is now seventh on the points table.
Glendale marked the first 450 Main win for the 26-year-old Californian and promotes the KTM rider to fourth in the championship standings.
Blake Baggett – P1
“It’s good to just be able to feel good enough to run behind Jason [Anderson] and you know, I’ve had weekends where I can run with those guys and some weekends they just leave me in the dust, so it feels good to finally get my whole program together and be able to run with those guys. I’ve got to keep things rolling, it hasn’t hit me yet that I finally got a 450 win!”
Jason Anderson – P2
“This was a good weekend. I was able to ride the Main better than last week. I had a section that I didn’t think I was great in, so I didn’t want to put myself in a position to go down and lose points. I took the second and I’ll go from there.”
Eli Tomac had to take on the LCQ in order to make the 450 Main Event after the reigning AMA Motocross Champion suffered a problem with the rear wheel of his KX450F in the heat race. There was a massive pile-up during the LCQ that Tomac managed to avoid but Savatgy got caught up in the incident and thus missed the Main.
Tomac though rode well in the main to claim fourth place ahead of Marvin Musquin and Anaheim 1 winner Justin Barcia. Tomac is now third on the points table, three-points adrift of second placed Barcia.
Justin Brayton finished seventh ahead of Dean Wilson and Cole Seely while Cooper Webb rounded out the top ten.
Chad Reed bagged nine-points from his 14th place finish, coming home four-seconds behind Yoshimura Suzuki team-mate Justin Hill.
AMA Supercross 2019
450 Round Two Main Event Results
- Blake Baggett – KTM
- Jason Anderson – Husqvarna +5.847
- Ken Roczen – Honda +8.148
- Eli Tomac – Kawasaki +10.650
- Marvin Musquin – KTM +12.034
- Justin Barcia – Yamaha +12.844
- Justin Brayton – Honda +14.650
- Dean Wilson – Husqvarna +16.992
- Cole Seely – Honda +21.168
- Cooper Webb – KTM +23.442
- Aaron Plessinger – Yamaha +24.690
- Vince Friese – Honda +29.977
- Justin Hill – Suzuki +30.666
- Chad Reed – Suzuki +34.443
- Justin Bogle – KTM +56.357
- Kyle Chisholm – Suzuki +63.895
- Alex Ray – Suzuki +1 lap
- Carlen Gardner – Honda +1 lap
- Ben Lamay – Honda +1 lap
- Ronnie Stewart – Husqvarna +1 lap
AMA Supercross 2019 Championship Points
- Ken Roczen 44
- Justin Barcia 43
- Eli Tomac 40
- Blake Baggett 37
- Dean Wilson 34
- Marvin Musquin 33
- Jason Anderson 32
- Cooper Webb 31
- Aaron Plessinger 29
- Justin Brayton 28
- Cole Seely 27
- Chad Reed 23
- Vince Friese 21
- Justin Hill 18
- Malcolm Stewart 17
Round Two – Glendale – 250 West Main
Adam Cianciarulo jumped out to an early lead in the 250 Main and by half race distance had built up a healthy five-second buffer over Shane McElrath.
By race end Cianciarulo had doubled that gap out to almost ten-seconds while Colt Nicholds overhauled Shane McElrath in the latter half of the race to claim the second spot on the rostrum.
Nichols retains the series lead while Cianciarulo’s win promoted him up to second on the series leaderboard.
Colt Nichols – Race P2 – Championship P1
“The bike was great. It felt really, really good all day. We made a few changes to the suspension before the night program and that helped a lot. The track was just so dry and you had to be really, really patient. I was trying not to rush everything, but sometimes I kind of rushed it and made a few little mistakes. That’s all right though. I still salvaged a second, so I’m really happy to leave with the points lead and will get ready for next weekend.”
Australian privateer Tomas Ravenhorst piloted his KTM to 26th in qualifying to make it into the top 40 cut that progressed through to the heat races. Ravenhorst then finished tenth in his heat race which meant he narrowly missed the cut for automatic progression to the 250 Main. Ravenhorst then had a difficult LCQ in which he finished 15th and thus missed out on the Main, despite running inside the LCQ top ten for most of the LCQ.
AMA Supercross 2019
250 Western Round Two Main Event Results
- Adam Cianciarulo – Kawasaki
- Colt Nichols – Yamaha +9.557
- Shane McElrath – KTM +13.919
- RJ Hampshire – Honda +15.007
- James Decotis – Suzuki +28.681
- Dylan Ferrandis – Yamaha +36.520
- Chris Blose – Husqvarna +51.927
- Sean Cantrell – KTM +54.672
- Garrett Marchbanks – Kawasaki +55.925
- Michael Mosiman – Husqvarna +60.157
250 Western Round Two Main Event Results
Adam Cianciarulo – Kawasaki
Colt Nichols – Yamaha +9.557
Shane McElrath – KTM +13.919
AMA Supercross 2019 250 Western Championship Points
- Colt Nichols (Yamaha), 49
- Adam Cianciarulo (Kawasaki), 44
- Shane McElrath (KTM), 42
- Dylan Ferrandis (Yamaha), 40
- RJ Hampshire (Honda), 38
- Jimmy Decotis (Suzuki), 34
- Garrett Marchbanks (Kawasaki), 31
- Chris Blose (Husqvarna), 30
- Michael Mosiman – Husqvarna 24
- Jess Pettis (KTM), 24
Source: MCNews.com.au