AMA Supercross 2019

Round Two – Glendale – 450 Main

The opening round of AMA Supercross for 2019 at Anaheim saw competitors battle muddy conditions. For round two in Arizona conditions were fine and clear as they were under the roof of the State Farm Stadium at Glendale, despite that the track still certainly presented its challenges.

AMASX Rnd Glendale TrackMap — State Farm Stadium at Glendale – AMA Supercross 2019 Round Two

Some fireworks had unfolded earler in the heat races when Dean Wilson and Justin Barcia had some stern words with each other after the pair clashed in Heat Race One. That opening Heat was one by Marvin Musquin ahead of Cole Seely.

Chad Reed qualified 11th before finishing second in his Heat to Justin Brayton, and thus the Aussie legend was promoted straight through to the Main. Ken Roczen qualified P9 and finished eighth in his heat race to narrowly qualify for the Main without having to endure LCQ.

AMASX Rnd Start Musquin — AMA Supercross 2019 – Round Two – Glendale – 450 Main

Malcolm Stewart rode strong at the series opener and that form looked to have followed him to Arizona with third place in his heat race. Unfortunately the 26-year-old crashed heavily 15-minutes remaining of the 450 Main which put him out of the running. The fall was heavy and caused the race to be stopped while Ken Roczen had a handy lead over Anderson and Musquin. Stewart was later diagnosed with a broken femur.

Roczen would rue the race being stopped as he had scored an amazing holeshot in the first attempt at running the Main and looked as though he was running away with it.

Jason Anderson didn’t really fire at the A1 season opener but the reigning Supercross Champion looked to have a lot more fire in his belly. Some judged that to be too much fire in his belly when the Husqvarna man made a hard pass on Roczen that took the German down.

The Honda man managed to remount and salvage third place after being passed by Anderson, Baggett and Musquin while he was on the ground. Roczen got back past Musquin for third but his challenge for the win ended with that pass by Anderson. To help offset some of that disappointment Roczen can take heart that he now leads the 2019 AMA Supercross Championship on 44-points.

Jason Anderson was rounded up by Baggett in the closing stages of the race and the KTM man then went on to walk away from the defending champion to an almost easy win. Anderson gave up the fight as soon as he was passed by Baggett, electing instead to take a safe P2 and the 23-points it came with. Anderson is now seventh on the points table.

Glendale marked the first 450 Main win for the 26-year-old Californian and promotes the KTM rider to fourth in the championship standings.

Blake Baggett – P1

“It’s good to just be able to feel good enough to run behind Jason [Anderson] and you know, I’ve had weekends where I can run with those guys and some weekends they just leave me in the dust, so it feels good to finally get my whole program together and be able to run with those guys. I’ve got to keep things rolling, it hasn’t hit me yet that I finally got a 450 win!”

Jason Anderson – P2

“This was a good weekend. I was able to ride the Main better than last week. I had a section that I didn’t think I was great in, so I didn’t want to put myself in a position to go down and lose points. I took the second and I’ll go from there.”

Eli Tomac had to take on the LCQ in order to make the 450 Main Event after the reigning AMA Motocross Champion suffered a problem with the rear wheel of his KX450F in the heat race. There was a massive pile-up during the LCQ that Tomac managed to avoid but Savatgy got caught up in the incident and thus missed the Main.

Tomac though rode well in the main to claim fourth place ahead of Marvin Musquin and Anaheim 1 winner Justin Barcia. Tomac is now third on the points table, three-points adrift of second placed Barcia.

Eli Tomac – P4

“I was feeling confident coming into the weekend and felt good in qualifying. The track was massive and different from most of the tracks in the series. It’s never ideal to have to go to the LCQ but we got it done and stayed focused on the Main Event. We’ll be focusing on our starts this week and look to apply that practice to the race next weekend. We’re still third in points and in a really good position so we’ll come out swinging for the second go-around in Anaheim.” – Eli Tomac

Justin Barcia – P6

“It was a really difficult day for me. The track was really high speed. It had some really technical rhythm sections. For some reason, I could never get a good flow on it. It was a little bit frustrating I would say, but I felt like every time I went on the track I kind of got better and better and made some really good bike changes. I wish I could have gotten more comfortable right off the bat. I just never felt comfortable today. It was definitely a frustrating day compared to my win last weekend. But all in all, the team really worked their butts off today to get me as comfortable as I could on the bike on this tricky track. It was really hard packed, really slick. The team went above and beyond and did a good job on the bike. The track was just a difficult one for me. So I’m moving on this week. Will work on a few things and then back to Anaheim. Looking forward to that. I’m really excited for A2.”

Justin Brayton finished seventh ahead of Dean Wilson and Cole Seely while Cooper Webb rounded out the top ten.

Chad Reed bagged nine-points from his 14th place finish, coming home four-seconds behind Yoshimura Suzuki team-mate Justin Hill.

AMA Supercross 2019
450 Round Two Main Event Results

Blake Baggett – KTM
Jason Anderson – Husqvarna +5.847
Ken Roczen – Honda +8.148
Eli Tomac – Kawasaki +10.650
Marvin Musquin – KTM +12.034
Justin Barcia – Yamaha +12.844
Justin Brayton – Honda +14.650
Dean Wilson – Husqvarna +16.992
Cole Seely – Honda +21.168
Cooper Webb – KTM +23.442
Aaron Plessinger – Yamaha +24.690
Vince Friese – Honda +29.977
Justin Hill – Suzuki +30.666
Chad Reed – Suzuki +34.443
Justin Bogle – KTM +56.357
Kyle Chisholm – Suzuki +63.895
Alex Ray – Suzuki +1 lap
Carlen Gardner – Honda +1 lap
Ben Lamay – Honda +1 lap
Ronnie Stewart – Husqvarna +1 lap

AMA Supercross 2019 Championship Points

Ken Roczen 44
Justin Barcia 43
Eli Tomac 40
Blake Baggett 37
Dean Wilson 34
Marvin Musquin 33
Jason Anderson 32
Cooper Webb 31
Aaron Plessinger 29
Justin Brayton 28
Cole Seely 27
Chad Reed 23
Vince Friese 21
Justin Hill 18
Malcolm Stewart 17

Round Two – Glendale – 250 West Main

AMASX Rnd Start McElrath — Round Two – Glendale – 250 West Main

Adam Cianciarulo jumped out to an early lead in the 250 Main and by half race distance had built up a healthy five-second buffer over Shane McElrath.

By race end Cianciarulo had doubled that gap out to almost ten-seconds while Colt Nicholds overhauled Shane McElrath in the latter half of the race to claim the second spot on the rostrum.

AMASX Rnd Colt Nichols Line — Colt Nichols

Nichols retains the series lead while Cianciarulo’s win promoted him up to second on the series leaderboard.

AMASX Rnd Adam Cianciarulo — Adam Cianciarulo

Adam Cianciarulo – Race P1 – Championship P2

“My team has put in so much hard work to help me get to this point,” said Cianciarulo. “It’s amazing to be able to repay them with a win. I was thankful to get an okay finish last week in the rain because it put me in good position moving forward. Now we are just five points out of the championship lead.”

Colt Nichols – Race P2 – Championship P1

“The bike was great. It felt really, really good all day. We made a few changes to the suspension before the night program and that helped a lot. The track was just so dry and you had to be really, really patient. I was trying not to rush everything, but sometimes I kind of rushed it and made a few little mistakes. That’s all right though. I still salvaged a second, so I’m really happy to leave with the points lead and will get ready for next weekend.”

AMASX Rnd Colt Nichols Podium — Colt Nichols

Australian privateer Tomas Ravenhorst piloted his KTM to 26th in qualifying to make it into the top 40 cut that progressed through to the heat races. Ravenhorst then finished tenth in his heat race which meant he narrowly missed the cut for automatic progression to the 250 Main. Ravenhorst then had a difficult LCQ in which he finished 15th and thus missed out on the Main, despite running inside the LCQ top ten for most of the LCQ.