WASHOUGAL, Washington - Jett Lawrence failed to earn the holeshot in both Washougal Nationals motos and did not lead the opening laps, but he showed patience and kept his perfect streak of moto and overall wins alive in the 2023 Pro Motocross season.
Dylan Ferrandis paced the field in on the opening lap of Moto 1, but his advantage lasted only for that one trip around the track. In the second moto, Aaron Plessinger jumped into the lead and paced the field for three laps, which is the deepest any rider has taken Lawrence into a round this season.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Lawrence said after being reminded he did not win either moto in last year’s 250 overall win. “I was just pumped to make my way around Chase (Sexton) on that start. I was pushing hard.”
Sexton finished second in both motos for the third consecutive week and finished second overall again. Once more, Sexton closed the gap on Lawrence in the final half of the race, but the only way he was going to make his way about Lawrence was to ride beyond his comfort level. Sexton tucked his wheel after closing to within a second of Lawrence and tipped over taking the pressure off Lawrence in the process.
Plessinger faded to third and was more than 45 seconds off the pace at the checkers, but he put his name in the box score as the rider who stayed ahead of Lawrence for the longest in a race.
Jason Anderson in fourth and Dylan Ferrandis rounded out the top five.
A pair of fourth-place finishes was enough to give Anderson the final spot on the podium overall, which was his first in four rounds since returning from a neck injury.
Click here for complete 450 results
Last week Hunter Lawrence made a statement by coming within less than a lap of winning both motos to score the overall win after two weeks of suffering a DNF in one moto each round.
Haiden Deegan made an even louder statement at Washougal as he swept the 250 class to become the first rider in this class to do so this season. It was not long ago that Deegan scored his first Supercross podium at Daytona. As remarkable as it seems, the rookie rider is now a serious contender for the 2023 Pro Motocross championship, trailing the more experienced Lawrence by just three points.
Justin Cooper also cut into Lawrence’s points lead. His third- and second-place finishes in the pair of motos trimmed two points from the lead and while he still needs a little help from Lawrence in the form of a mistake if he wants to assume the lead, Cooper can see the top spot only 19 points ahead.
Lawrence was challenging for his fourth consecutive moto podium until he lost the front wheel in a heavily shadowed portion of the track in the second race and washed out. He finished fourth in Moto 2 to take third overall.
Click here for complete 250 results
NBC SPORTS’ COVERAGE OF SUPERMOTOCROSS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Ty Masterpool’s opportunistic decision
Colt Nichols counterpunches in SMX battle
SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Spring Creek
Spring Creek results and points
Jett Lawrence does it again
Garrett Marchbanks pivoting into success
There is a problem with the gate at the drop, necessitating a full restart.
On the restart, Aaron Plessinger takes the top spot. Lawrence has a new rider to pass after Dylan Ferrandis gets the Moto 1 holeshot.
Plessinger leads Lap 2, which is the deepest into a moto any rider has gone ahead of Jett Lawrence.
Plessinger’s dream moto ends on Lap 3 with Lawrence stalking and passing Plessinger.
At the halfway point, Sexton has gotten around Plessinger and trails Lawrence by 1.3 seconds. Plessinger falls eight seconds off the pace.
Deeper in the pack, privateers Garrett Marchbanks is on pace for another top-10 in seventh. Ty Masterpool runs eighth.
With 10 minutes remaining on the clock, Lawrence’s lead has stabilized at 1.3 seconds. Speaking about last week’s race, Lawrence indicated he allowed Sexton to pull up to him before pulling away. Lawrence may be toying with the field.
Colt Nichols borrowed a bike in order to try and move back into the top 20 in 450 SuperMotocross World Championship points. With six minutes remaining, he is 10th.
Not so fast: Sexton closes to within a second of Lawrence - and then almost immediately crashes after apparently hitting neutral. Third-place Plessinger is 32 seconds behind, so Sexton holds onto second.
Lawrence rides to an easy win after Sexton’s crash for his 16th consecutive moto win.
Sexton overcomes his tip over to finish three seconds behind.
The two Honda riders are the class of the field with Plessinger more than 42 seconds back in third, Jason Anderson 57 second behind in fourth and fifth-place Dylan Ferrandis more than a minute off the pace.
Tom Vialle will not be among the riders to mount up for 250 Moto 2 of the Washougal Nationals.
Justin Cooper gets the holeshot and leads Washougal native Levi Kitchen and Haiden Deegan.
Seth Hammaker passes Deegan early on the first lap.
Hunter Lawrence continues his pattern of bad starts and falls back to sixth early.
Deegan reclaims third from Hammaker with 26:20 remaining.
Kitchen pressures Cooper for the lead with 25 minutes remaining, squeezing into the inside line.
While Cooper and Kitchen battle, Lawrence moves up into fourth place.
With 21 minutes remaining Lawrence has caught Deegan and turns his attention to the battle for third. The top four are within 3.330 of each other.
Lawrence goes down with 19:02 remaining has he continued to pressure into a shaded whoops area of the course. He lost one spot to Seth Hammaker but Pierce Brown was too far back to capitalize as well.
With a rider in between him and Lawrence Deegan can shift focus onto his teammate Kitchen in second.
Cooper pulls away and extends his lead to 3.675 over Kitchen.
Halfway Point: Cooper leads teammates Kitchen and Deegan.
Deegan sends his way into the lead 💯 #ProMotocross #SuperMotocross #WashougalMX pic.twitter.com/rhED2u9bAa
— Pro Motocross (@ProMotocross) July 22, 2023
Deegan passes Kitchen with 14:58 remaining. If they end how they currently run, Deegan’s 1-2 will win him the overall. Before the pass Cooper’s 3-1 would’ve edged Deegan’s 1-3 finishes.
With 12 minutes remaining Lawrence is back to fourth.
Lawrence pressures Kitchen on Lap 9.
In the final 10 minutes, we see Cooper pull away from his teammates and Kitchen continue to create a buffer between them and the points leader Lawrence.
Two minutes and two laps remain for the leaders as Deegan as cut Cooper’s lead down below two seconds.
Deegan makes the pass on Cooper with 1:21 minutes remaining before the final laps. The young 17-year-old rider proves endurance is not going to be a problem in his rookie season. If he holds the lead this will be the first 1-1 in the 2023 motocross season.
Deegan is the first 250 rider to run a lap below 2:16. The only rider to finish a lap below 2:16 in the 450 class during Moto 1 was Jett Lawrence.
Deegan takes the white flag with a nine-second lead over Cooper.
On the 50th anniversary of the Yamaha YZ, Deegan leads his teammates Cooper and Kitchen to a perfect podium for the team.
Lawrence misses the podium in this moto but works his way back to fourth after his tumble. RJ Hampshire completes the top five.
Seth Hammaker, Jo Shimoda, Maximus Vohland and Carson Mumford finish sixth through ninth.
Austin Forkner completes the top 10 improving on his 21st-place finish in Moto 1.
Deegan wins the overall with his 1-1 followed by Cooper with his 3-2 and Lawrence with 2-4.
When asked about his 2:15 lap time. Deegan said: “Those last few laps I put my heart into this thing, baby. Man, it’s nerve racking and I’m sure it’s nerve racking for Hunter too, he’s suppose to be winning these things. I’m glad that I could put the American up front for all the fans.”
With today’s finish Deegan has shrunk Lawrence’s lead to 3 points in the Pro Motocross championship standings.
“Tough day in the office, tough day,” Lawrence said, “yeah the shadows are tough, but it’s the same every year. I just got to be better. It’s tough this is a tough track when you don’t get a great start.
The series heads into a two-week break as attention swings to the Loretta Lynn’s Amateur Nationals. Lawrence has battled a rib injury since early in the season and needs the break more than most.
First and foremost, (I need) to get back to a hundred percent,” Hunter said as his goal for the two week break, “just keep riding and getting more laps in, a little work on the bike and we’ll come back swinging.”
The 450 riders are heading to the gate for their first race of the Washougal Nationals.
Jett Lawrence enters 450 Moto 1 leading the last 105 laps; another rider has not led a lap since Round 4 at High Point and this is the fourth longest streak in Motocross history. The pressure starts early for the rookie as he continues to streak towards a perfect season.
Dylan Ferrandis captures the holeshot in front of Lawrence and Adam Cianciarulo.
Cianciarulo and Jason Anderson get together and fall back as Chase Sexton moves into third shortly after the holeshot.
Ferrandis leads the first lap, ending Lawrence’s consecutive lap streak.
Lawrence shortens the gap to Ferrandis and overtakes him, on the inside, for the lead with 24:52 remaining.
With 21:00 remaining the focus moves to the gap between second and third as Chase Sexton pulls withing half a second of Ferrandis.
On Lap 5, Lawrence sets the fastest lap of the race so far with a time of 2:15.496.
Sexton falls back after making a few mistakes on Lap 5 and is a full second slower than his teammate Lawrence. The No. 18 Honda now leads Ferrandis by 3.773 with 16:51 remaining.
Sexton and Ferrandis resume their battle with 15:20 remaining, Sexton moved from the outside to the inside and passes Ferrandis.
A gap of 5.900 seconds separates Sexton from his teammate as he starts his charge.
Colt Nichols enters the top 10 in his first moto of 2023 after borrowing a bike in order to protect his place in the SuperMotocross points top 20.
With 11 minutes remaining Lawrence continues to put down laps in the 2:15s while no other rider can break below the 2:16 lap mark.
2-Stroke check in: With four minutes remaining the best running 2-Stroke is Carson Brown as they race for $15,000 in this special challenge.
Lawrence leads Sexton by 5.832 seconds as the clock expires and they head towards the final two laps.
Jett gets a wheel and makes the move into 1️⃣#ProMotocross #SuperMotocross #WashougalMX pic.twitter.com/ahSHcXgi8Q
— Pro Motocross (@ProMotocross) July 22, 2023
Lawerence leads at the white by 8.068 seconds over Sexton and the teammates have a 10-second buffer between them and the rest of the field led by Ferrandis.
He stays perfect! Lawrence wins his 15th moto of the season on his quest towards a perfect season.
Sexton and Ferrandis complete the podium followed by Jason Anderson and Cianciarulo.
Ty Masterpool narrowly misses a top five.
Aaron Plessinger, Garrett Marchbanks, Fredrik Noren and Nichols complete the top 10.
“We didn’t get that holeshot as we wanted but thank gosh we were second,” Lawrence said, “It’s a tricky track, it’s so hard to pass, you have to set up like 16 turns, basically the lap before to make a pass in the same turn that you started to try and make time.”
Sexton failed to win in a 450 at Washougal for the first time in his career, citing the difference in the track from previous years.
“We need to make a few adjustments obviously,” Sexton said after the first moto. “We had a decent start. It took me a moment to get around Dylan and by the time that happened Jett was gone and I couldn’t close the gap. Looking forward to the second moto.
This track is interesting it’s a lot different than it was last year with the sand they added. It’s a little bit of a different animal and something that we have to adjust to.”
Haiden Deegan takes the early lead in 250 Moto 1 as Hunter Lawrence gets another modest start.
Meanwhile, Austin Forkner goes down on Lap 1 and is gets dragged behind the bike.
Local rider Levi Kitchen rode to the track via a backwoods trail and is fifth with 23 minutes remaining in the moto. Lawrence has recovered to challenge Kitchen for the top-five.
With 19 minutes remaining, Deegan has a five second lead over Justin Cooper. The best battle on the track is between Seth Hammaker, Lawrence and Kitchen for fourth. And as they battle, RJ Hampshire has joined the fray. Max Vohland is comfortably in third.
Just past the halfway point, Lawrence moves up to fourth and closes to within a second of Vohland.
Tom Vialle also crashed on the opening lap and NBC Sports’ Jason Thomas reports that the Red Bull rider had the wind knocked out of him.
Forkner has worked his way to 31st with 11 minutes remaining. He needs to be in the top 20 to record much-needed points in his quest to make the SuperMotocross cutoff.
Preston Boesplug is making his pro debut in the Washougal Nationals and he rides 17th with eight minutes remaining.
Lawrence climbs to third in his quest for a 12th moto podium in 15 starts. Six minutes to go and Lawrence is now 1.2 seconds behind Cooper.
Elbows out: Lawrence takes Cooper for second with three minutes remaining. Deegan is 3.8 seconds ahead.
Deegan scores the second moto win of his career and closes the points’ gap to 10 behind Lawrence, who salvaged a second-place finish.
“I’m over rolling around in fifth. It’s time to step up,” Deegan said. “Today was the day. I was like you’ve got to stop being a little baby; you got to to send. We got up front, rode up front and it was a good race.”
A quick gate drop contributed to Lawrence’s slow start, according to the rider.
“I’m not going to lie, I was caught off guard,” Lawrence said. “It dropped like three seconds earlier than it normally does.”
Cooper takes the final podium spot.
Forkner climbs to only 21st and fails to score points.
Jett Lawrence was the fastest qualifier for the Washougal Nationals with a time of 2:14.510 and he knows just how important a strong start is on this fast, tight course.
Jason Anderson slotted into the second position, but was nearly a second off the pace at 2:15.407.
Adam Cianciarulo (2:15.632), Chase Sexton (2:15.801) and Dylan Ferrandis (2:16.515) rounded out the top five.
Complete 450 qualification times
Despite missing a round to injury at High Point, Justin Cooper is in sight of Hunter Lawrence for the Pro Motocross 250 points lead and he served notice he is going to be Hunter Lawrence’s fiercest competition with the fastest lap in qualification. His lap of 2:14.175 was set in the first session.
Lawrence closed the gap and led the second session, but his fastest lap of 2:14.579 placed him second on the chart.
Haiden Deegan (2:15.289), RJ Hampshire (2:15.432) and Austin Forkner (2:15.818) rounded out the top five.
