2023 Fox Raceway Motocross | Race Report & Results

2023 FOX RACEWAY MOTOCROSS | COMPLETE COVERAGE

The Pro Motocross Championship kicked off its eleven-round cross-country tour with the 2023 Fox Raceway Motocross. Four motos on the challenging Southern California track showed which riders are capable of running at the front this summer and that nothing is certain until the checkered flag waves.

250 CLASS | MOTO ONE

Jo Shimoda, RJ Hampshire, and Tom Vialle took the top spots on the opening lap and set the tempo for the race’s first half. Shimoda ran in first for the first five minutes until poor line choices in the tight middle section of the track upset his rhythm and gave Hampshire a chance to take over. The Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing rider ran ahead of the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki pilot and Red Bull KTM import for the next five minutes, only to make a more significant mistake in an off-chamber corner on the opposite side of the course, which spat him off the bike, put Shimoda ahead for a moment, and brought Max Vohland into the mix. A cross-rut-induced crash in the rollers soon after took Shimoda out of contention for the lead and freed Hampshire up for a series of fast, uninterrupted laps.

Justin Cooper and Hunter Lawrence linked up early. The championship favorites were eighth and tenth, respectively, on the opening lap and stayed within a second of each other as they picked their way through the pack, reaching sixth and seventh together. A mistake by Cooper in a corner while trailing Ryder DiFrancesco changed the outcome of the race for all three riders, as Lawrence immediately pounced on Cooper and made a run at the rookie for fifth place. Cooper tried to latch onto the Team Honda HRC rider but could not; the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider ultimately finished fifth, ten seconds back of Lawrence.

Lapped traffic bunched Vohland, Shimoda, and Lawrence together in the race’s closing minutes. Shimoda had the most trouble, as getting stuck behind a slower rider let Lawrence get by and bump him off the podium.

Hampshire earned the win with five laps in the middle of the moto. The effort started with a 2:26.073 on lap seven, the best time of the race, then with a 2:27.585 on lap eight, and continued with 2:29s on lap nine/ten/eleven. This put Hampshire roughly nine seconds ahead of the pack until the final lap, when reserved riding cut the margin of victory down to 6.1 seconds.

A slew of rookie riders scored points in the first moto of the summer: Haiden Deegan finished sixth, Tom Vialle seventh, Guillem Farres eight, Ryder DiFrancesco ninth, Jett Reynolds twelfth, Chance Hymans fifteenth, Caden Braswell eighteenth, and Talon Hawkins twentieth.

250 CLASS | MOTO TWO

The second moto was a reminder of the come-through-the-pack pushes, the wild swings in momentum, and the dominant or lackluster results riders experience from one gate drop to the next in the 250 Class. Hunter Lawrence aced the start and claimed the holeshot this time around, which kept him out of the issues that riders RJ Hampshire, Jeremy Martin, Max Vohland, and Jo Shimdoa couldn’t avoid. The Team Honda HRC was completely unchallenged for all fifteen laps; his advantage over the pack increased from 2.5 seconds on lap one to a maximum of 12.3 on lap nine, then backed down to 8.4 seconds at the finish line.

Plenty played out further back in the field. Red Bull KTM’s Tom Vialle held second place for most of the moto, from the opening lap until the last eight minutes, but was bumped back one spot by Haiden Deegan’s late race pass. The move by the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider secured his place on the podium, as 6-2 scores put him second overall.

The final spot on the stage took much longer to decide, as passes and actions in the last five laps constantly changed the overall results.

Justin Cooper spent the entire race in a battle for position. The Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider got up to eighth place after a mediocre start, dueled Michael Mosiman for a lap to take sixth, passed into fifth place at the halfway point, and pressured teammate Vialle on the last lap for third place. Two small mistakes in pursuit for the podium caused Cooper to stumble in a deep corner, but he remounted ahead of teammate Guillem Farres in fourth place.

Two crashes on the opening lap put race one winner Hampshire in last place. It took until the halfway mark in the moto to reach a points-paying position, and a strong push through the pack put him on Michael Mosiman’s rear wheel for tenth place and on the overall podium with a few laps to go. Unfortunately, an all-out pass attempt around the outside of a turn went wrong for Hampshire, as his incoming speed was too much for the berm, and the crash dropped Hampshire back to twelfth place in the moto and seventh overall. A stunning last-lap move on rookie Chance Hymas by Hampshire, paired with Deegan’s action on Vialle, got the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing rider back on the overall podium.

Vialle, Cooper, and Vohland tied on points (34 each), and their second moto scores determined their place in the final results.

450 CLASS | MOTO ONE

Jett Lawrence, Dylan Ferrandis, Chase Sexton, Cooper Webb, and Aaron Plessinger assumed the top spots the moment the gate dropped and remained the front-runners for the full duration of the race. Lawrence made the most of the clear track, as the Team Honda HRC rider put almost three seconds between him and second place Ferrandis on the first lap, six seconds on lap three, and ten seconds on lap six.

The rookie’s advantage was aided by Chase Sexton’s self-admitted struggles through the first half. The Team Honda HRC rider made a number of small mistakes as he followed Ferrandis and felt pressure from Plessinger, but seemed to loosen up after the Red Bull KTM rider slid out at the top of the hill. Sexton passed the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider Ferrandis for second place with twelve minutes and two laps to go, then chipped away at Lawrence’s lead by going slightly faster on laps ten/eleven/twelve. The gap got down to 7.3 seconds, but another hiccup by Sexton and a late uptick in pace by Lawrence kept the two from getting any closer than that.

Aaron Plessinger had the pace to go for a podium, but multiple mistakes by the Red Bull KTM rider kept him from earning the spot. Instead, he went down two times, diced with teammate Cooper Webb, and finished in fifth place. Former series champion Dylan Ferrandis took a solid third in a return to action after a long layoff due to a concussion.

Independent riders Lorenzo Locurcio, Jerry Robin, Grant Harlan, Jose Butron, Ryan Surratt, Kaeden Amerine, Dante Oliveira, RJ Wageman, Jace Kessler, Luca Marsalisi, Brandon Ray, and Richard Taylor finished among the top-twenty and scored points in the first moto.

450 CLASS | MOTO TWO

Lawrence aced the start again in Moto Two, but teammate-title rival Sexton was much closer much sooner. The Team Honda HRC one-on-one took shape after Dylan Ferrandis, who was running second, made a mistake through the rollers on the opening lap and allowed Sexton to go by; the red riders stayed within two seconds of each other and dropped the Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider five minutes into the race.

All eyes stayed on Lawrence and Sexton from that moment on. The two were on the limit through the entire race, with Lawrence doing his best on lap four (2:26.295) and Sexton on lap seven (2:26.014), and they stayed within two seconds of each other for all fifteen laps. Both made their share of mistakes, including a foot dab to swap for Lawrence at the halfway point and some momentum-robbing hops out of ruts by Sexton, but they quickly recovered each time and knifed through lapped traffic together in the last ten minutes. The only major disruption occurred with six minutes and two laps to go, when Sexton briefly checked up after taking a face full of roost from Lawrence’s rear tire in a rutted turn.

The race came down to the last two laps. Sexton cut almost a full second from the gap on lap thirteen after Lawrence lost time in sectors one and three, and the pair were separated by just 0.758 seconds as they took the white flag. The last lap was as straight-up as a race can gets, as both riders did all they could to find a faster way around the choppy, technical track. Lawrence was the one that found the ideal lines, as his 2:27.609 to Sexton’s 2:27.859 let him rebuild a miniscule lead and cross the finish only 1.008 seconds ahead.