Round two of the 2022 Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship has come and gone. Both classes provided several talking points about passes, crashes, track conditions and privateers. As such, we asked longtime pro racer Jason Thomas a few questions to get his thoughts on all things Hangtown Motocross Classic.
Eli Tomac came to life in the second run. Explain any inside information you discovered about his performance.
With Eli injuring his knee at the Atlanta round of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross, I don’t think he got as much outdoor testing time as he would have liked. That means they’re probably testing a bit each turn. Remember, Eli had never raced the Yamaha in a motocross race before the opening round. I spoke to his suspension tech, Ricki Gilmour, and he said they switched to an air fork for this race, and it was much better. It should be noted that Eli also raced an aerial fork at Hangtown in 2015, winning the race by over a minute and a half (with a best lap time of five seconds better than anyone else). Since they are still sorting out uncharted territory with this bike on different tracks, I would expect some growing pains along the way.
Chase Sexton didn’t win this time, but he was right. Did a solid second round really boost the appearance of his title aspirations?
I think so. He was so good at Fox Raceway in the past, I wasn’t sure if that was something we could rely on as a real indicator. Supporting the performance at Hangtown went a long way in making this more real. The difficult part is that his main competition also looked much better. Ken Roczen was still solid, Jason Anderson took his first overall victory and Tomac was extinguished in that second moto. If Sexton wants to win this title, he will have to earn it.
