Chase Sexton kept his name in the championship conversation with his fourth win of the season in Round 15 of Monster Energy Supercross at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee in a race marred by a hard crash and injury for title contender Cooper Webb. With his win and Webb’s failure to start, Sexton moved into second in the standings with 18 points to be made up on Eli Tomac.
Webb fell back to third, 34 points behind.
Tomac hoped to take full advantage of Webb’s absence. He grabbed his sixth holeshot of the season, but five minutes into the race, he had a big moment. His front tire dug in the dirt on a landing and nearly threw him over the handlebars. That near miss took a little aggression away and allowed Sexton to shave three seconds off in the next few laps. At the halfway point, Sexton swept around Tomac for the lead.
“I just wanted to be consistent and hit my marks,” Sexton told NBC Sports Will Christien. “I didn’t get the best start, but I made my way up and saw Eli offline, wanted to click off good laps and get close. With the track being this sketchy, it’s hard to be out front the whole time and for me it allowed me to seem some different lines. That was a tough track, but I felt super smooth, really locked in and I feel like I’m making big strides.”
Tomac finished in the runner-up position for the second consecutive week and earned his fifth podium in the last six rounds. Next week the series heads to his home track in Denver and as long as he continues to grace the box, he cannot be caught for the championship.
“We launched out of the start there; had two great starts during the day,” Tomac told NBC Sports Daniel Blair. “I was trying to do what I can and honestly I had a bobble in the whoops and that is when I started to take it easy. The track got really torn up and Chase was riding really good, so I was just riding in my zone.”
Ken Roczen scored his third straight podium with a third-place finish. But now that the podiums are coming with greater frequency, he wants more.
“That was a bummer,” Roczen said. “I completely botched my start and my first two laps were probably my worst all year. I was just going backwards at the beginning. I wasn’t riding my best either. I’m stoked to get away with third place. Podiums are tough to get out there on a tricky track. It claimed a couple of guys so I just played it safe.”
Justin Barcia, last week’s winner in New Jersey, crashed at the halfway point when he cased a jump. Barcia was carted off the track holding his left shoulder. His crash sent him home 21st and he is now 13 points behind Roczen in their battle to finish fourth.
Colt Nichols in fourth and Justin Hill rounded out the top five.
Cooper Webb went down on Lap 1 of Heat 1 and was run into by Adam Cianciarulo, whose front wheel ran over Webb’s back and made hard contact with his helmet. Webb was helped to the Alpinestars medical cart.
Webb was taken to the hospital for evaluation and did not start the main.
Heat 2 continued to take a toll. Early in that race, Jason Anderson cross rutted and was pitched off the front of his bike. An earlier incident in qualification injured his left shoulder. He was unable to finish his heat and had to race his way into the main via the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ).
Hunter Lawrence didn’t need to win the Nashville 250 East Supercross race to take the championship, but he wanted to. Needing only a 20th-place finish or better, Lawrence cruised behind Jordon Smith and waited until that rider made a mistake by jumping off course. Once out front, Lawrence clicked off the final laps to and won his seventh race in nine rounds of the season.
Lawrence will head to the season finale in Salt Lake City with only one thing in mind. In their final head-to-head battle on a 250 cc bike, Hunter and Jett Lawrence will fight for supremacy in the East/West Showdown.
After receiving congratulations from his competitors on the track, Hunter head to the mechanics area, gently placed his bike on the ground and hugged Jett, who is expected to wrap up the 250 West division next week in Denver.
“I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Lawrence said. “Everyone that is with me now was with me when I was at my lowest, so this is incredible. I can’t say I ever dreamed of this as a kid because I didn’t know this was possible. I’m choked up; this is surreal.”
Returning from injury only two rounds ago, Jo Shimoda stood on the podium for the first time this season with a second-place finish. While Lawrence was following Smith in the opening laps, Shimoda seemed to have the faster bike. Even after Lawrence took the lead, Shimoda refused to fall back significantly and finished less than four seconds behind.
“The last couple of months was a lot of couch sitting and it wasn’t fun,” Shimoda said. “Just to be out here is awesome to me. We’ll just keep pushing and do this thing.”
Jordon Smith’s last win was 2018 in Daytona. He was leading until he jumped off course and handed over the top spot to Lawrence on Lap 6.
“The Yamaha got off to a good start,” Smith said. “That felt good. I’ve been struggling with the starts as of late and we did a lot this week. … That’s where I want to be, battling for the win. I just have to eliminate those mistakes, but I’m not going to take these podiums for granted. It’s been a while since I’ve been consistently up here.”
Haiden Deegan finished fourth and earned his sixth top-five.
Last week’s winner Max Anstie rounded out the top five.
