After some mid-week testing to improve in confidence in the whoops, Chase Sexton showed that the hard work has paid off as the 22 year old Honda rider took his first 450 main event win of his young career – and they might just start coming thick and fast now!
Sexton admitted it is a wight off his shoulders to get the first one after coming so close before and, with his work ethic and self-belief, the HRC Honda man could well be a title contender now after winning in style by pulling away from former champ Eli Tomac to win at San Diego.
Sexton said of his win in the press conference: “When I got in the lead I was like, ‘ I’m not wasting another opportunity.’ I think I was pretty locked in, I felt pretty good with the track. the whoops, I was comfortable in which was the biggest thing, so i could hit them every lap with confidence and not have to worry about it step out. i just really hit my my marks it felt like I was back at the Honda track.
“It’s hard to put into words, I’ve been chasing this forever but it’s only been a year and a half or something like that. it was a dream come true for me
Sexton said it had been a long week testing but that the result made everything worth it: “So, this week we left the Honda test track and rented Lake Elsinore, they have a pretty good set of whoops there and we were struggling last week, me and Kenny both in the whoops. I was there to around four o’clock, I think I left the track. We spent two good days of testing which I fell like it paid off tonight, I felt more comfortable from the first practice on. We did make a few changes but it was really just the whoops, I felt really comfortable everywhere else but when you don’t feel comfortable on a certain part of the track and you have to go around that 20 or however many laps, it’s difficult to do.
“As far as getting the first win, it definitely feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders, like I said, so many times I was in that position a lot and it never happened. You start to question and tonight I had to believe and finally got it done. The 450 class is gnarly this year, like it always is, and there is a lot of racing left. If i can keep getting good starts and putting myself in good position, I think we will be where we want to be.
“It’s addicting to win races, I don’t want to be a one hit wonder, I want to go out there and back it up.”
.@_ChaseSexton to the lead! 🚀
— Supercross LIVE! (@SupercrossLIVE) January 23, 2022
450SX Main Event LIVE fueled by United Pacific#SupercrossLIVE pic.twitter.com/dQj6QLMd0h
On the changes he made to the bike during the week Sexton elaborated: “This week we switched triple clamps, shock, changed stuff making it a little more rigid, I thought we were getting a lot of flex with the bike, we changed a lot of stuff this week, it was nice to see it pay off because we threw a lot of stuff at it. I’m not saying it’s perfect and it’s going to work everywhere way but it definitely made life a lot easier in the whoops tonight.”
Sexton, as we saw with Anderson this week until his mechanical thwarted his chances of challenging for the win, might just get even faster now he has this huge win under his belt.
Article: Jonathan McCready
Images: Feld Entertainment Inc.