Now that Unadilla is out of the way, there are only two races left in the 2024 AMA National Motocross Championship. Unadilla had all the makings of a great race and up front it was, but anywhere behind the front three it was an unmitigated disaster. First, there was good news for Chase Sexton and Levi Kitchen as they got the overall 450 and 250 victories, but by going 1-2 and 2-1 they didn’t actually gain any points on their main competition. Sexton has a 28-point lead over Hunter Lawrence, while Haiden Deegan has a 70-point lead over Levi Kitchen.
Where lots of points were gained and lost was when KTM’s Tom Vialle crashed early in the first moto and earned zero points, and even though he came back to finish third in the second 250 moto it did him very little good as his 22-3 wasn’t good enough to get him in the top ten. Chance Hymas was running away with the first 250 moto, when the rear end of his Honda CRF250 kick sideways, which allowed the front wheel to cross-rut and fling Chance into the air—and then it landed on top of him. He tried to come out and race the second moto, but it was not a good decision and he retreated to the pits pretty quickly. The bad news kept coming at Jo Shimoda crashed with three laps left in the second and was hauled away in the medical cart with a left arm in a sling. Shimoda held on to fourth in the 250 series points, but only because Chance Hymas crashed out of the first 250 moto and scored no points at Unadilla.
Cooper Webb made his return to racing after thumb surgery, but he crashed over a blind drop-off, you know which one—the one where the flagger forgot to wave the yellow flag for the fallen Webb! Cooper was forced to wave his arms to warn oncoming riders and, of course, scream at the idle flagger—before getting out of the way of the unaware riders coming over the jump. Cooper Webb not only went 8-35, but he rode off the track without using his left arm. Ken Roczen just came to Unadilla to get in some seat time and test out the leg he broke during the Supercross season. Ken ran near the front in both motos, but his 7-6 score was the result of trying to stay out of the way of riders who were still racing for Championship points.
Three highlights from Unadilla were that Jalek Swoll went 6-4 for third overall in the 250 class—which put a Triumph on the podium for the first-time ever. Equally impressive is that Dylan Ferrandis went 6-3 for fourth—his best result in the 2024 AMA 450 Nationals and honorable mention goes to Garrett Marchbanks, who up until Unadilla had been racing the 450 class for the ClubMX Yamaha team, but they let him go a week ago and he rejoined the Pro Circuit Kawasaki team and switched to the 250 class. Garrett went 5-5 for fourth overall.
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Photo Credit: John Mayer