Dungey dishes the dirt
By TMX Archives on 4th Feb 15
Ryan Dungey extended his lead at the top of the Monster Energy AMA SX 450cc series standings with a dominant performance at round five as the championship paid its third and final visit this season to Anaheims Angel Stadium.
Dungey, the 2010 champ, hadn't won a SX Main Event since March 2014 but finally got the monkey off his back on Saturday evening.
After qualifying first and winning his heat race Dungey came to the start line full of confidence. Gating third, he quickly pushed through to second before moving past holeshotter Blake Baggett and into the lead on lap two.
Trey Canard, winner last weekend in Oakland, rounded the first corner in sixth - three places ahead of early series pace-setter Ken Roczen - and moved up to third behind Cole Seely as Baggett slipped back to fourth.
With three laps down Roczen was up to fifth and he was pretty quickly joined by Eli Tomac but the German, who wasn't looking as smooth as usual, gave himself some breathing room when he demoted Baggett. The following lap - as Dungey began to ease away with a series of fast, precise laps - Tomac passed Baggett for fifth.
Roczen and Tomac both picked up a place when Canard's front wheel washed out in a left-hander and the pair then closed down Seely.
At the start of the final lap Tomac dived up the inside of Roczen to take third and that's how they finished with Dungey extending his lead to 11 points over Roczen and Tomac moving up to tie Canard for third in the standings a further 12 points back.
