Current AMA Supercross Champion Ryan Dungey can definitely feel the heat. Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac shrunk his rival’s lead in the 450SX standings to just seven points with a sixth win of the season and his fourth in a row with a resounding victory at Ford Field in Detroit last weekend for what was the twelfth fixture of seventeen.
The 46,000 crowd lapped up the latest episode of what is becoming an enthralling duel between the two rivals: Dungey having established an early lead in the ’17 contest and now owns ten podium finishes thanks to his third place in Detroit, and Tomac recovering from some early wavering form to hit a hot streak and chip away at a margin that once looked unrecoverable at 29 points.
Races in St Louis, Seattle, Salt Lake City, New Jersey and Las Vegas will intensify the dispute, with Tomac unable to relax the throttle cable and Dungey in need of victory to regain an upper hand on a third potential championship. In Detroit #3 was able to power his way ahead of Marvin Musquin across the slick dirt and on a track that took the riders partially into the standings and light the winner’s candles for the fourth time.
“For me it is still the same goal and I am still the guy behind so I need to keep doing what I’m doing,” Eli said. “We have five left to go but I’m still chasing and we’ll do what we can to make up that point gap.”
The 250SX East continues to throw up the unexpected. Three-time winner and points leader Zach Osborne was caught up in a first turn crash and had to pit to fix broken spokes in his front wheel. He regained two points but left the way open for Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Joey Savatgy and Adam Cianciarulo to grasp the two podium places behind winner Jordan Smith. The upshots of Savatgy’s fourth podium finish (and third consecutive runner-up finish) after a good tussle with Smith – and recovering from a small race slip – means that #17 is now in control of the standings by 9 points and three rounds left to run.
“I should have set the pass up a bit later and the last two laps came down to the wire but all-in-all I got a lot of points tonight and we’ll just keep going,” Savatgy said.
“I didn’t really know about the championship situation until after the race and I need to focus on me and getting rid of those mistakes. To come away with the red plate was good but we have three rounds left and they won’t be easy by any means.”