2017 St. Louis Supercross Results and Coverage |
Tomac Closes In On Dungey
Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac claimed his fifth victory in a row at Round 13 of the 2017 Monster Energy AMA Supercross series at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis. Tomac’s eighth win of the season puts him just four points being series leader and reigning champion, Red Bull KTM’s Ryan Dungey.
In the Main Event, it was Dungey who scored the SupercrossLive.com Holeshot aboard his factory KTM 450 SX-F. Tomac came around the first corner in second place and quickly made his way around Dungey to take the lead before the end of the opening lap. Dungey’s teammate Marvin Musquin was close behind in third.
Tomac charged early on in the race and pulled away from the rest of the field. Meanwhile, Musquin was hounding Dungey. Dungey rode defensively, held off Musquin and started polling away as Musquin fell off the pace by Lap 7. Dungey then set his sights back on Tomac.
Dungey laid down several fast laps at the halfway point of the 25-lap Main Event, and gap between the two dropped to less than two seconds. Dungey hounded Tomac until Lap 16 when Tomac lapped Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha’s Chad Reed.
At that point, Reed, who had been criticized on-camera by Dungey after the Heat race, refused to honor the blue flag for lappers and blocked Dungey for several laps. By the time Dungey passed Reed on Lap 19, Tomac was gone for good.
In the end, Tomac led all 25 laps to claim his 12th career 450SX victory cruising through the final three laps. Dungey was far head of Musquin, who rode a lonely race in third. It was Musquin’s eighth podium in the 2017 Monster Energy Supercross Series.
“I’m not giving up. It’s all I can do. Just go out there and give it my best,” said Tomac, who became the first rider since Ryan Villopoto in 2013 to win five races in a row. “Today was a little bit rough. I may not have shown it, but I didn’t do a whole lot of good. I didn’t get a good start in the Heat Race, but I nailed it in the Main Event and made the pass [for the lead] early. From there, I tried to do what I could to open up some space, but Ryan was riding good and kept me honest the whole time. We just kept pressing on.”
Dungey’s runner-up effort was his championship-leading 11th podium result of the season, but he’s been unable to keep pace with Tomac’s recent run in which he’s earned 172 of a possible 175 points over the past seven races.
“I’m so excited about tonight. I felt like I rode awesome. You don’t win them all sometimes, but I felt so good,” said Dungey. “We were catching Eli a bit and I was really happy with my riding. He just got away there at the end. Overall, I’m really happy with tonight. Not disappointed at all. Of course, I really want to win, but Eli’s tough right now. He’s riding really good. It’s the challenge of racing and pushing myself to be better. It’s a good thing.”
Musquin had mixed feelings about his second ride after recovering from an illness. “Overall, I’m having good weeks of training, good weekends and feeling good on the bike, having fun,” Musquin said. “It’s good to be up on the podium, but at the same time I’m disappointed a little bit. My first lap was unreal because the start wasn’t so good and I made so many passes and I got third at the end of the first lap, it was awesome. I felt like I was pushing Ryan and I was quicker. I was going fast, and then I couldn’t make the pass, I feel like I tightened up a little bit. The track was really tough, I mean the dragon’s back—that’s where I crashed in practice, and I didn’t want to do the same mistake. I kind of played it safe with third place. That’s all I could do tonight.”
Rockstar Energy/Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Jason Anderson took a comfortable fourth place, finishing 25 seconds behind Tomac and 14 seconds ahead of Tomac’s teammate Josh Grant, who finished fifth. It was Grant’s best finish of the 2017 season.
“I got off to a good start in my heat race,” Anderson said, “and from there I took the win. It was nice to get back on top. I figured I could keep the momentum going into the main event and got a pretty decent start. I just kind of got stuck there in fourth place and I couldn’t really make much happen. I still rode really solid. Those guys were fast out there tonight. I’ll come back swinging in Seattle.”
Team Honda HRC’s Cole Seely sixth after a poor start that left him outside of the top 10 at the end of the first lap. Seely moved up to fifth by Lap 8, but 365 Racing/Seven/Suzuki’s Malcolm Stewart on Lap 17 and Josh Grant the following lap.
The battle raged with Seely taking back sixth from Stewart with two laps remaining. Stewart dropped back to ninth, as Rocky Mountain ATV-MC/WPS/KTM’s Blake Baggett and RCH/Yoshimura/Suzuki Factory Racing’s Broc Tickle also got by Stewart on Lap 24. Despite losing ground late, the ninth place finish was the first top 10 placing in Stewart’s rookie 450SX season.
Baggett’s seventh place finish allowed him to move head of teammate Davi Millsaps in the 2017 Monster Energy Supercross standing. Millsaps’ 13th was his worst finish in a Main Event this year, and Millsaps slips to seventh in the standings. Tickle’s eighth pushed him ahead of Reed, who had his second consecutive finish outside of the top15. Tickle is now eighth in the standings. Reed dropped into a virtual tie for ninth with Rockstar Energy/Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Dean Wilson.
Red Bull KTM’s Trey Canard is out for the season with a virus, while Smartop/MotoConcepts/Honda’s Mike Alessi broke his collarbone in a press day crash and was unable to ride.
2017 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Results – Round 13 – St Louis
- Eli Tomac – Kawasaki KX450F
- Ryan Dungey – KTM 450 SX-F Factory Edition
- Marvin Musquin – KTM 450 SX-F Factory Edition
- Jason Anderson – Husqvarna FC450
- Josh Grant – Kawasaki KX450F
- Cole Seely – Honda CRF450R
- Blake Baggett – KTM 450 SX-F Factory Edition
- Broc Tickle – Suzuki RM-Z450
- Malcolm Stewart – Suzuki RM-Z450
- Justin Brayton – Honda CRF450R
- Justin Bogle – Suzuki RM-Z450
- Dean Wilson – Yamaha YZ450F
- Davi Millsaps – KTM 450 SX-F Factory Edition
- Cooper Webb – Yamaha YZ450F
- Justin Barcia – Suzuki RM-Z450
- Chad Reed – Yamaha YZ450F
- Jake Weimer – Suzuki RM-Z450
- Vince Friese – Honda CRF450R
- Kyle Chisholm – Honda CRF450R
- Alex Ray – Yamaha YZ450F
- AJ Catanzaro – Kawasaki KX450F
- Kyle White – Honda CRF450R
2017 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Standings (after 13 of 17 rounds)
- Ryan Dungey, 276 points (2 wins)
- Eli Tomac, 272 (8 wins)
- Marvin Musquin, 227 (1 win)
- Cole Seely, 211
- Jason Anderson, 188
- Blake Baggett, 163
- Davi Millsaps, 160
- Broc Tickle 143
- Chad Reed, 136
- Dean Wilson, 136
- Josh Grant, 125
- Justin Brayton, 106
- Cooper Webb, 86
- Jake Weimer, 79
- Malcolm Stewart 73
- Vince Friese, 69
- Justin Bogle, 65
- Mike Alessi, 59
- Justin Barcia, 57
- Ken Roczen, 51 (2 wins)
Chad Reed should have been black flagged. He ruined what was shaping up to be a good race. He needs to do everyone a favor and retire.