In a timely display of speed and race craft, Team Honda HRC’s Chase Sexton notched his first victory of the young AMA Supercross season, taking two 450SX race wins at the Anaheim 2 Triple Crown event, which awarded overall points based on results in three separate races. Sexton’s 1-5-1 performance—the second premier-class victory of his career—advanced the Illinois native from third to a tie for second in the title chase, just four points behind the leader. Meanwhile, Jett Lawrence weathered crashes en route to 3-6-1 250SX West finishes, and although the resulting second-overall result was his first non-win of the year, the young Australian actually extended his points lead significantly, from six to 16. Colt Nichols—who had scored holeshots in the season’s first two 450SX main events—experienced uncharacteristically poor getaways at Anaheim 2, and his 12-14-11 finishes netted 12th overall.
Sexton took the 450SX race 1 holeshot and led all 14 laps to score the win. Race 2 saw the CRF450RWE rider start fourth, only to fall on lap 3. He completed the next lap in eighth and climbed to fifth by lap 5, and that’s where he sat at the finish. Sexton started third in race 3 and immediately overtook Cooper Webb. After stalking Jason Anderson for four laps, he took over the lead and built a cushion to take a comfortable win.
After having led every 250SX West main-event lap through the first two events, Lawrence was forced to deal with traffic at Anaheim 2. Race 1 saw him start fourth and then crash from second on lap 4, remounting in time to finish the lap sixth. The CRF250R rider fought forward to third at the finish. Following an eighth-place race 2 start, Lawrence went down in lap 1 traffic and began a charge through the pack that ended with a sixth-place finish. Lawrence finally got a strong start in race 3, taking the holeshot and leading to the finish
Sexton: “It was kind of exciting—all of us were within one point coming into the last race, so any of the four of us could’ve won. I got a good start, I had some good lines and I felt really good through the whoops. It’s fun to be back in this position in the points; I knew I had to stop the bleeding coming into this weekend. I’m stoked on the bike changes we made this week, and I’m really looking forward to Houston and going back East.”
Lawrence: “The first two mains were pretty much chaos—I had some bad starts, made some mistakes, and that was pretty much it. Luckily, in the third one I was able to get a good start and stay out of the carnage for once. I’m looking forward to having some time off, playing some golf and getting ready for Oakland.”
Nichols: “I was looking forward to the Triple Crown, just because I had been getting out of the gate really well, but today I couldn’t quite pull it together on the starts. I was on the ground a little bit tonight as well, and didn’t quite have it; it was a bit frustrating, from practice on. We need to be a little better. We’re struggling to find comfort in some areas, and I was too timid in some spots and too aggressive in others. We’ll figure it out.”
Lindstrom: “We needed a good day like today. Even though a sweep of 250 and 450 wins keeps avoiding us, we had a great day towards the championships. Even with Jett getting second, being 16 points ahead is huge. And Chase made up a ton of points after having an awesome day qualifying and capitalizing on others’ misfortunes. The whole team is super excited—a lot of weight off our shoulders.”
Word and Image: Honda
