Troy Dog
Let’s all stand up and give Red Bull KTM’s Chase Sexton a round of applause. He did a rare feat in this sport coming from absolutely dead last to win the second 450MX Moto at Hangtown!
A rear end washout on the opening lap was the reason for his comeback, but he didn’t let anybody get in his way and passed 39 riders, a feat we haven’t seen in Pro Motocross since Jeffrey Herlings did it in the second moto at Ironman in 2017.
“I’m an idiot,” Sexton said in the press conference. “That’s all I was saying to myself. This is probably the dumbest thing that I could have done. I just slid out all by myself, which made it even worse. I was just going to go as fast as I can for as long as I can. That was my mentality and it worked out. You don’t get to do that very much, especially in this class so, I’ll take it. It was pretty exciting!”
Not only did Sexton go 1-1 on the day, but he also capitalized big time on the mistakes made by his championship rival Jett Lawrence
“This is one of the best races that I’ve ever had,” Sexton said. “I was pretty conscience when it was going on. I knew I had to send it to get back where I needed to be. I had a few hairy moments down the hills, probably like two, so those get you back into realization into what’s going on.”
With a couple laps to go, Sexton still had to make up six seconds on the leader Aaron Plessinger. He was a man on a mission and was able to get very close on the final lap. Plessinger said in the press conference that he did what he could to try and keep his teammate behind him, but the Sexton train was hauling too much speed.
“I didn’t really think that I could win until, I mean the whole goal was to just get passed Hunter, when I saw that I was close enough, but I didn’t think that was realistic when I went down,” Sexton said. “Then when I got past those guys I saw AP and I was like, man I’m already this far, I might as well keep going. So, I kind of regathered myself and then I went all in on the last lap and I was close enough. I knew I was fast on the side of the track with the rollers, that’s kind of where I made all my passes. I sent it down the hill and my bike was fairly straight and I was pretty confident that I was going to get in there. Then AP saw me and he twisted the gas a little more. It was fun. That corner after that, before the mechanics area, was my favorite corner all day. Once I got in there I was okay and I knew we were good.”
Sexton is now the red plate holder with an eight point lead on HRC Honda’s Hunter Lawrence heading into round three at Thunder Valley.
No matter what happens the rest of the season, or even the rest of Sexton’s career, what he did at Hangtown on Saturday will forever go into bench racing lore. Many generations will be talking about this race for decades. We won’t forget the day Sexton went 40th to first.
Main Image: Octopi Media
