QUALIFYING

Qualifying at Washougal ended with a familiar sight: Eli Tomac atop the leaderboard. Tomac was the only rider to post a time in the 2:10’s, while Justin Hill and Marvin Musquin were the only others to crack the 2:11’s. Hill, a native of the Pacific Northwest, will likely have plenty of crowd support at Washougal today.

Back from injury and racing his first National of the season, Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Josh Grant qualified in 10th.

Moto 1
As the riders came around the first turn, it was a pair of Suzukis and a pair of Kawasakis leading the way. Justin Bogle (who now has five holeshots in seven motos), Justin Hill, Josh Grant (who is making his season debut) and Eli Tomac made up the top four. As Bogle held on to lead the first official lap of the race, Tomac moved up to third and Justin Barcia dropped a bunch of positions after going down.

While Tomac struggled to get around Hill for second, Marvin Musquin caught up to the lead trio and joined the fight. Five minutes into the moto, Tomac finally passed Hill and then set his sights on the race leader. All told, Bogle led a total of three laps before eventually succumbing to the hard-charging Tomac. Then it was Musquin’s turn to deal with the JGR duo of Hill and Bogle. With 22 minutes left into the moto, the Frenchman put himself into second place behind Tomac but was already facing a three-second deficit.

Ken Roczen cracked the top three after making his own passes on Bogle and Hill, but Tomac and Musquin were long gone by th point. Bogle’s slide continued after he went down on Lap 6 and fell back to 12th place. Since returning from injury a few weeks ago, Bogle still has yet to record a top-10 moto finish despite repeatedly getting the holeshot.

Tomac, Musquin and Roczen basically got to run their own races for the rest of the moto. Once they all hit the top three, none of them were feeling (or applying) any pressure, so they ended up going 1-2-3. For Tomac, it’s his third straight moto win and he’s now won 12 of the season’s 17 motos thus far.

Hill matched the best result of his brief 450 Class career with a fourth-place finish. It’s the third time this season that he’s finished in that position.

Moto 2

The race started with yet another holeshot from Justin Bogle, but he gave up the lead to Ken Roczen after just a few turns. The quick ride to the front gave Roczen an opportunity to open up some ground with Eli Tomac buried further back in the pack thanks to a bad start, while Bogle once again faded backward over the next couple laps.

After three laps, the running order was as follows: Roczen, Justin Hill, Marvin Musquin, Justin Barcia, Tomac. Hill held off a charging Musquin for as long as he could but ultimately gave up second place to the Frenchman. Meanwhile Tomac was finding it difficult to get around Barcia. Eventually the Monster Energy Kawasaki rider came flying off a downhill jump and took an inside line to pass Barcia. Thanks to a crash from Hill, Tomac got up to third place before tipping over in a corner and allowing Barcia to get back around him.

After the aforementioned shakeups, it was Roczen, Musquin, Barcia, Tomac and Blake Baggett composing the top five. Musquin was running just a few seconds behind Roczen, but the rest of the field was more than 10 seconds back of Musquin. But once Tomac got around Barcia a second time, he started throwing down fast laps and catching up to Musquin. With five minutes left on the countdown clock, Tomac had reeled in Musquin and went to work, eventually passing him in the whoops after some good side-by-side racing.

That pass put Tomac in position for the overall win, but he had more than that on his mind. He quickly erased Roczen’s gap and was showing a wheel to the race leader with three laps to go. He then charged through the whoops and scrubbed the finish line to jump to successfully pass Roczen for first place. Now in the lead and being saluted by the crowd, Tomac survived the final two laps to officially complete the impressive come-from-behind win. Roczen, Musquin, Barcia and Baggett made up the rest of the top five.

The victory gave Tomac his 13th moto win and seventh overall win of the season. Five of his seven overall victories have come in the form of 1-1 sweeps.

Because of his better finish in Moto 2, Roczen (3-2) beat out Musquin (2-3) for second place overall behind Tomac. More importantly for Musquin, he lost another eight points to Tomac in the battle for the 450 Class championship. Tomac more than doubled his lead, from seven points to 15, over the course of the day at Washougal. With three rounds still left to go, that lead is far from insurmountable though.

Notably absent from Moto 2 was Josh Grant. After a 10th-place finish in Moto 1, he did not line up for the second moto.

450 OVERALL RESULTS

1. Eli Tomac (1-1)
2. Ken Roczen (3-2)
3. Marvin Musquin (2-3)
4. Justin Barcia (5-4)
5. Blake Baggett (6-5)
6. Cooper Webb (8-7)
7. Benny Bloss (7-10)
8. Weston Peick (12-6)
9. Kyle Cunningham (11-8)
10. Phil Nicoletti (9-12)

Photo: Simon Cudby