Report: Lucas Oil AMA Motocross Championship - Budds Creek
By Team TMX on 24th Aug 16
Ken Roczen (RCH Suzuki) clinched the 2016 450cc Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship one round early with his eighth double win of the season at Budds Creek on Sunday.
The 2011 MX2 world champ led every lap of every race to underline his dominance, taking the title with one round still to run.
The 2014 champion, Roczen started the 2015 season with a serious injury but shrugged off the bad memories and dominated from the get-go this season even before defending champ Ryan Dungey (Red Bull KTM) sustained a campaign-ending injury.
With 18 wins from a possible 22, Roczen underlined his status as the best AMA outdoor rider and goes into the season-ending race at Crawfordsville, Indiana, with an untouchable lead.
"There's so many people I have to thank,” he said. "My whole entire team. We finally made it. It's just a solid programme, something that I'm happy with.”
Roczen holeshot the opener from Andrew Short (BTO KTM) and Justin Barcia (JGR Yamaha) but his main title rival Eli Tomac (Monster Kawasaki), in an incredible display of sportsmanship, crashed and then delayed his restart to lift the bike off Ronnie Stewart who'd gone down with him.
Barcia moved into second past the veteran Short as Roczen quickly opened up a 17-second gap and he traded passes with Marvin Musquin (Red Bull KTM) a number of times before the Frenchman secured the place.
At the flag Tomac had recovered to sixth, one place behind Scot Dean Wilson, which gave Roczen the chance to take the title in race two.
With the championship his for the taking, Roczen dominated race two and his win by over 20 seconds was good enough for him to secure the title.
Tomac was second in the moto but it was Barcia who took a season-best second on the day ahead of Musquin who is virtually assured of third in the series behind Tomac.
"My team did a great job today, got the bike working a lot better and I felt a lot more comfortable,” said Barcia. "Today was brutal – that second moto Marvin was on me. With three to go I cracked him and got away so it was good. It was a tough day, the fans were awesome and the team did a good job.”
Musquin, still in his rookie 450 season, found it hard going at Budds Creek.
"It's another podium which is great but since the first lap in practice I was not feeling good but we worked hard,” he said. "The first moto was pretty decent, the second I was just trying to be consistent – those guys got away and I was trying to catch Barcia but I didn't. That's a bummer but I still got third.
"It's the end of the season and it's been a long season but there's one round to go and we keep working.”
Tomac tried to play down the incident in the first race.
"It's just natural instinct,” he said. "I was stuck in a weird spot and my bike was lying in the main line and I was waiting for bikes to come past me and I saw the rider was on the ground so why not help him?
"I got back to sixth or something and came back fighting in the second moto and got to second and just did what I could. Big congrats to Ken on the year – I definitely need to step it up next year but I'll come back charging next week”
The 250 title went to Cooper Webb (Star Racing Yamaha) – his team's third straight title – but it was a tough day for him at his home track and fifth overall with a 6-3 card clinched it.
Webb, who started the season with a broken wrist, did just enough to take the title as former British MX2 champion Zach Osborne claimed a career-first overall from Alex Martin (Star Racing Yamaha} and Austin Forkner (Monster Energy Kawasaki).
"I don't know what to say,” said Webb. "I honestly didn't think I'd be here at the start of the season with this injury. To do it here early is unreal in front of my home crowd and my home fans. Today wasn't sweet but I made it happen and that's what champions are made of – you get knocked down and you've just got to get straight back up again. I'm stoked. I'm going to celebrate tonight!”
LUCAS OILS AMA NATIONAL MOTOCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP
Rd 11 – Budds Creek National, Miller Motorsports Park, Sheep Lane, Tooele, Utah
OVERALL 450cc CLASS: 1 Ken Roczen (D - Suzuki) 25+25=50, 2 Justin Barcia (Yamaha) 20+20=40, 3 Marvin Musquin (F - KTM) 22+18=40, 4 Eli Tomac (Kawasaki) 15+22=37, 5 Phillip Nicoletti (Yamaha) 18+15=33, 6 Dean WILSON (GB - KTM) 16+16=32, 7 Fredrik Noren (S - Honda) 13+14=27, 8 Andrew Short (KTM) 14+12=26, 9 Benny Bloss (KTM) 10+11=21, 10 Anthony Rodriguez (VEN - Kawasaki) 11+10=21, 11 Matthew Bisceglia (Suzuki) 12+9=21, 12 Cole Martinez (Yamaha) 7+7=14,...
SERIES STANDINGS after 11 (of 12) rounds: 1 Ken Roczen 540 points (CHAMPION), 2 Tomac 444, 3 Musquin 357, 4 Barcia 307, 5 Nicoletti 212, 6 Pourcel 195, 7 Bloss 183, 8 Seely 178, 9 Andrew Short 177, 10 Dungey 175, 11 Noren 174, 12 Canard 157,... 21 Dean WILSON 102,... 35 Paul COATES 12,...
OVERALL 250cc CLASS: 1 Cooper Webb (Yamaha) 25+25=50, 2 Aaron Plessinger (Yamaha) 20+20=40, 3 Austin Forkner (Kawasaki) 14+22=36, 4 Justin Hill (KTM) 16+18=34, 5 RJ Hampshire (Honda) 12+15=27, 6 Mitchell Oldenburg (KTM) 13+12=25, 7 Alex Martin (Yamaha) 8+16=24, 8 Martin Davalos (ECQ - Husqvarna) 10+13=23, 9 Tristan Charboneau (Honda) 11+11=22, 10 Joey Savatgy (Kawasaki) 22+0=22, 11 Adam Cianciarulo (Kawasaki) 18+0=18, 12 Kyle Cunningham (Yamaha) 7+10=17,...
SERIES STANDINGS after 11 (of 12) rounds: 1 Cooper Webb 472 points (CHAMPION), 2 Alex Martin 365, 3 Savatgy 363, 4 Forkner 329, 5 Plessinger 325, 6 Jeremy Martin 321, 7 Osborne 253, 8 Oldenburg 219, 9 Hampshire 217, 10 Cianciarulo 215, 11 Tonus 200, 12 Davalos 190,...
FINAL ROUND: August 27 – Ironman MX, Crawfordsville, Indiana.
