Ryan Dungey picked up his second straight victory helped by a dominating Moto 1 victory on Saturday for Round 4 of the 2015 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship series held at Muddy Creek in Tennessee.
Dungey wasted no time picking up where the injured Eli Tomac left off and won Moto 1 by 14 seconds. Prior to his season-ending injury last week in Colorado, Tomac was dominating the field even winning a first round Moto by 90 seconds. Dungey settled for second-place in Moto 2 which gave him the overall and increased his lead by two-points over Ken Roczen, who is now in second-place in the standings.
Roczen, the defending Champion, appears to be fully handling his ailing back which he revealed earlier this season to be a stress fracture. Roczen led wire to wire in Moto 2 for his first win of the year and if not for the third-place in Moto 1 would have taken the overall. He battled Jason Anderson briefly for second but settled for third.
Roczen has lots of ground to cover if he's to catch Dungey who was gifted a 35 point lead once Tomac's season ended. Blake Baggett, who entered Round 4 in third-place, behind Dungey and Tomac, took fourth and is now 40 points back from Dungey. Baggett is three-points behind Roczen but hangs on to third-place after passing Tomac in the standings.
Anderson took his second podium of the year and looks to be riding better in Outdoors in his first year on the 450s than he did in Supercross earlier this year. Anderson took second in Moto 1 for a career high finish and fourth-place in Moto 2 for the third-place overall. He entered the round in eighth and left in sixth-place just two points behind Justin Barcia, who grabbed the MotoSport.com Holeshot Award in Moto 1 but crashed soon after. Barcia got back on the horse and finished ninth, and a sixth-place Moto 2 gave him eighth overall.
In the MotoSport class, Tommy Hahn continued to have lingering headaches after last week's crash and stayed out of racing. Guy Cooper, team manager for the MotoSport.com/GPI/Honda team said he's going to get reevaluated.
"He is training but still gets bad headaches," Cooper said.
In the 250 class, Marvin Musquin was untouchable in Moto 1, taking the MotoSport.com Holeshot Award and never looked back, winning by 18 seconds over Jeremy Martin. The win briefly gave Musquin the points lead but Martin, who entered Round 4 with a two-point lead, ended the day with a six point lead after winning Moto 2. Musquin's crash in the first lap of Moto 2 dropped him to 20th though he worked his way back to fourth, salvaging a lot of points. Musquin finished second overall, just a point ahead of Jessy Nelson who went (3-2) for third overall.
Martin and Musquin continue to pull away from the rest of the field as Martin holds a 53 point lead over Nelson and Musquin is securely in second with a 47 point lead. Martin is trying to win a second straight Championship and at this point it looks like his only competition is Musquin, the reigning 250 Supercross East Champion.
Kyle Peters fought through a damaged fork in Moto 2
MotoSport rider Kyle Peters finished 12th in Moto 1 but in Moto 2 a rock hit the fork leg on his bike and all the air went out. Cooper said he was fighting for 10th when the damage occurred and as the race went on Peters continued to drop back which looked like he was just tired but he was fighting the bike.
"It's a little bit of a bummer," Cooper said. "Kyle really gives 100 percent, he fought really hard and kept losing spots."
Justin Starling finished outside the Top 20 in his first week on the MotoSport team
Peters took 14th overall after finishing 18th for Moto 2. Justin Starling finished 26th overall in his first week with the team. Cooper said Starling dealt with some suspension issues that hampered his performance and he'll do some additional testing this week to get the bike dialed in before High Point on Saturday, a track that tends to get really rutted.
"The track was brutal," Cooper said of Muddy Creek. "It's the roughest first four races we've seen in a long time."
It doesn't look to get any easier for riders on Saturday for Round 5 at the High Point National in Mt. Morris, PA. Buy tickets online or check the TV schedule.
2015 Tennessee National Motocross Results
Tennessee National 450 Class Results
- Ryan Dungey (1-2)
- Ken Roczen (3-1)
- Jason Anderson (2-4)
- Blake Baggett (5-3)
- Phil Nicoletti (4-9)
- Cole Seely (8-5)
- Broc Tickle (7-7)
- Justin Barcia (9-6)
- Weston Peick (6-11)
- Justin Brayton (11-8)
Tennessee National 250 Class Results
- Jeremy Martin (2-1)
- Marvin Musquin (1-4)
- Jessy Nelson (3-2)
- Adam Cianciarulo (5-3)
- Joey Savatgy (4-11)
- Aaron Plessinger (8-7)
- Chris Alldredge (7-8)
- RJ Hampshire (11-5)
- Zach Osborne (9-9)
- Matt Bisceglia (6-13)
2015 Motocross Season Standings
450 Class Standings
- Ryan Dungey (175)
- Ken Roczen (138)
- Blake Baggett (135)
- Eli Tomac (125)
- Justin Barcia (114)
- Jason Anderson (112)
- Weston Peick (104)
- Broc Tickle (103)
- Phillip Nicoletti (92)
- Cole Seely (79)
250 Class Standings
- Jeremy Martin (175)
- Marvin Musquin (169)
- Jessy Nelson (122)
- Adam Cianciarulo (112)
- Joseph Savatgy (100)
- Zach Osborne (91)
- Chris Alldredge (89)
- Shane McElrath (87)
- Matthew Bisceglia (87)
- RJ Hampshire (85)
