2019 High Point Motocross | GoPro Onboard & Analysis

June 19, 2019

2019 HIGH POINT MOTOCROSS | COMPLETE COVERAGE

Time to watch the GoPro onboard footage from the 2019 High Point Motocross. The fourth round of the 2019 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship was the start of the East Coast swing and the day’s motos on the picturesque Pennsylvania track provided plenty to look for and talk about. Thanks to recent developments, GoPro is back as a supporter of the series and has the popular HERO7 camera on the lids of Adam Cianciarulo, Shane McElrath, Ben Lamay, and Jordon Smith. The footage was just uploaded online, but before we posted, we watched all four videos and made notes about what we saw. Let us know if you like our analysis, it validates what we’re doing…

ADAM CIANCIARULO | 250 MOTO ONE & 250 MOTO TWO

We’ll start with Adam Cianciarulo’s two motos. The Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki rider nabbed his fourth overall victory of the year through 2-1 rides, and as you’ll see in the footage, the first gate drop was a long battle against multiple riders. Since AC is one of the bigger riders in the 250 class, his riding style tends to rely on momentum maintained by riding the edges of the track and staying on the gas as much as possible, especially around the outsides of turns. Another thing that we’ve noticed from the GoPro footage is how much Cianciarulo revs the KX250. When you stand next to the track and hear 40 bikes, it’s tough to pinpoint one bike or rider, but with the onboard video, we can hear how Cianciarulo lays on the throttle before he lands nearly every jump.

The 250 Moto One video is the more exciting of the two. Although Cianciarulo’s launch out of the starting gate wasn’t great, he soon found his way by riders ahead and was in the top part of the running order. His opening lap pass on Derek Drake in the back part of the track was cunning and decisive and left the Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/KTM rider with no chance of firing back (Drake’s angle of the pass is featured in his footage below). The clip then cut to Cianciarulo’s pursuit of Hunter Lawrence, where we saw how Cianciarulo tried to go to every line opposite of Lawrence to dodge the roost and set up a pass; Lawrence was able to hold his own, held off Cianciarulo, and worked his way to the top spot for his first Moto win in America.

The final few moments of the 250 Moto One video included the contact between Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha teammates Dylan Ferrandis and Justin Cooper that sent Cooper off of the track and allowed Cianciarulo to snatch third place. Ferrandis made a mistake on his own late in the race in a deep corner and dumped the bike over, which then moved Cianciarulo to second place.

The 250 Moto Two video isn’t very long, probably because Cianciarulo started in the top-five, pursued Colt Nichols for the lead, made the pass, and won the race. It’s worth watching, though, just to see how Cianciarulo altered his line choices in the second race as the conditions changed.

CAMERON MCADOO | 250 MOTO ONE

Cameron McAdoo’s footage is from his first race aboard the Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/KTM 250 SX-F. McAdoo lost a little ground to the competition as they went over the gate, but recovered in the first few sections of the track and was well within the top-10 by the end of the lap. High Point’s downhill rollers might be one of the most treacherous and technical obstacles of the entire Pro Motocross tour, due to their rutted faces, odd spacing between each mound, and the massive variance in speed that riders reach when going through them. Getting through that section cleanly was a big challenge for all in the field.

Compared to Cianciarulo, McAdoo barely revs the engine of the KTM, and thanks to the easygoing riding style, he plotted and picked his way through most lanes without concern or issues. The High Point hills aren’t as big as Glen Helen’s mountains, but with the speeds riders reached going up the tire-wide ruts or down the massive braking bumps, we’d say High Point’s section equally as tough. McAdoo’s video concluded with a battle for position against Michael Mosiman; it seemed like the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Racing rider’s pass seemed to catch McAdoo off guard and McAdoo instantly had to up his pace to keep Mosiman in sight. Mosiman beat McAdoo to the checkered flag and they finished seventh and eighth place, respectively.

DEREK DRAKE | 250 MOTO ONE

Derek Drake’s 250 Moto One clip showed two key passes from a much-needed second angle. The start that the Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/KTM rider pulled from the right side of the gate continued the trend of rookie riders getting into the lead pack early in their career, and we’re sure the time spent in the spot is something Drake learned a lot from. The aforementioned pass Cianciarulo put on Drake in the back part of the track looked a little hectic from AC’s POV, but Drake’s footage showed there was plenty of room between the two when the move was made. Props to both riders for holding their own and neither checked up to give the other an inch. Drake is in the early stages of his pro career and has speed on his side, but the move Martin Davalos made showed that there’s plenty to be learned from the veteran riders. Thanks to years of professional racing, the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki rider knows what to expect in the opening laps of the 250 race and his pass on Drake looked like he was already in his “middle of the moto” pace while Drake bounced wildly off the wide lines. The more experience Drake gets in pro racing and at the front of the field, the more he will understand the very different speed and lines used.

BEN LAMAY | 450 MOTO TWO

The most important detail of 450 Moto Two for Ben LaMay happened long before the gate dropped. Bike issues plagued the privateer in the middle of the day and his small technical circle was unable to get the problem sorted out on the CRF450R. Just when it seemed like all hope was lost, Team Honda HRC’s Lars Lindstrom stepped in and went to work just as the first call signal to get riders into the staging rang out. While LaMay geared up and went to the line, Lindstrom got the bike running correctly and ran it to the line just in time for LaMay to make the cut-off time. With all that said, it’s impressive that LaMay was able to put concerns of the bike having some sort of problem to the back of his mind and went bar-to-bar with other riders. Like many of you, we like that GoPro has a camera on riders like LaMay because it gives the lesser-known name some much-needed exposure and provides us with a new look at the racing.

LORENZO LOCURCIO | 450 MOTO TWO

What we said about GoPro getting some cameras on guys a little further back in the field on the LaMay video applies here, too. Lorenzo Locurcio has been a top-20 guy in the 450 class this year and the early laps of 450 Moto Two put the Kawasaki-mounted privateer deep in the action. You know how riders always go on and on about how important a good start is? This video is proof of that. Locurcio got into the mix early, thanks in part to close action between Cooper Webb and Ken Roczen that forced the Team Honda HRC rider to check up, and that allowed Locurcio a little more clean air as he went into the first turn. As the packed plowed through the first lanes of the track, Locurcio received face-fulls of High Point’s hard pack roost and the constant spray had to wreak some havoc on his concentration. The most telling instance of this was in the rollers, as Locurcio chopped the throttle and looked down to dodge a huge spray of roost that blasted off the rear-wheel of Roczen.

Another interesting thing from Locurcio’s clip is the second look at Ben LaMay’s early laps. Seriously, it’s very trippy to see how differently the exact same moments in time played out just feet from one another.