Saturday Night Live: Champions are Crowned

In first was Eli Tomac, but he had Jett Lawrence right on him. Tomac was able to gap Lawrence a bit, but a late-race mistake in the double-quad-quad rhythm lane allowed Lawrence to immediately close back up on him, and a pass for the lead ensued shortly thereafter. In the second moto Tomac started in third behind both of the Lawrence brothers and wasn’t able to mount a charge on either of them. When asked if he would be willing to race the Motocross of Nations if Sexton was unable to do so, Tomac didn’t commit in either direction.

“Well, it's going to be a discussion that's going to be had over the next couple of days. But right now it's an unknown.”

Taking second on the night was Hunter Lawrence with 3-2 moto scores. He had the points lead coming into Las Vegas, but when you’re in a winner-take-all situation against a guy [Jett Lawrence] who goes 1-1, a 3-2 just isn’t going to get it done. Even so, Lawrence seemed genuinely pleased on his performance afterward.

“One of the goals I set before the season started was, I wanted to be a contender every weekend. That's what I was kind of most happy about is just to kind of pick up the same kind of characteristics from my 250 career, just being there every single weekend, being on the box, being in the conversation. So I'm happy with that. And at the end of the day, I'm just trying to get better. Like I know I keep saying it, but the second moto, that was a great moto. I'm not bummed on that at all, I left it all on the track. Neither of us made any mistakes and we just went hell for leather the whole time. I didn't win, but that was the best version of me tonight.”

Winning everything, of course, was Jett Lawrence for the second year in a row, although things were significantly tighter this year than last. In fact, the Lawrence brothers tied for the championship in points, with Jett winning the tie-breaker because he had more wins to his credit.

“It’s cool to battle with Hunter, but with the brother side of things, I want to see him do good and better than me, but once you get on the bike you click into a different person. Afterward it set in and I felt like a bit of an asshole [laughs].”

In the 250 ranks it was, as expected, Haiden Deegan prevailing for the championship. However, he didn’t complete the clean sweep. Winning round three in Las Vegas was Pierce Brown, who hung right with Deegan in the first moto to finish second, and passed his way into the lead in the second moto and gapped Deegan. It was Brown’s first win as a pro, and afterward he said getting the win felt even better than the hefty payday that accompanied the win.

“The money is cool, but the win is long overdue. It feels like a monkey off my back,” Brown said in the postrace press conference. “It’s been a goal for a while and we made it happen. Now it’s expected.”

Brown may have won the battle in Vegas, but as mentioned above, it was Deegan who won the war. But even so, Deegan was quick to give credit where credit is due, complimenting Brown on his impressive performance.

“I made my way up to third I think, and Tom [Vialle] went down and I was in second. I tried to put a charge on to catch Pierce [Brown], but he was riding so good it wasn’t worth the risk. I saw there were four laps to go and I was like, ‘A championship seems really good right now, I don’t want to do something stupid,’ so I just had to ride it in.”

If you’re counting, that’s three championships for Deegan (two SMX titles and one 250 AMA Pro Motocross Championship) in just his second year as a pro. That’s incredible!

Taking third in the championship, and fifth on the night was Vialle, who challenged for the lead in the second moto before going down while battling with Ty Masterpool.

“Everyone was riding the same, especially in that first moto. We just followed each other and it was really tough to pass,” Vialle said in the postrace press conference. “I had contact with Ty Masterpool in the first moto and he fell down, and in the second moto I touched his back wheel and fell down. I was really frustrated after the second moto because I was feeling really good. I had a bad start in the first moto but the second moto was better.”