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Motocross 2012 Championship at the Budds Creek National

Written by Brendan Brehm June 18, 2012 0Add

Justin Barcia at Budds Creek.

Sports Info

At the Budds Creek National in Mechanicsville, MD, an unstoppable Ryan Dungey (Red Bull KTM) won both motos for the third weekend in a row. Dungey’s overall victory at Budds Creek was the 17th of his career, which now makes him number six in the record book of overall motocross wins.

In the 250 class, we saw some cutthroat action amongst the top five riders, with Justin Barcia (GEICO Honda) taking the first moto and Blake Baggett (Monster Energy Kawasaki) the second.

450 Moto 1

To the surprise of many, it was Justin Brayton (Team Honda Muscle Milk) who came out on top through the holeshot. Brayton is of course a top-notch rider, but he hasn’t been starting very well this season. His lead didn’t last very long, however, as Dungey passed him by the first downhill section. Once Dungey took the lead, he just ran away with it and put 43 seconds between himself and second place by the end.

With Dungey in another world out front, the last two podium slots were left up to Brayton, Mike Alessi (MotoConcepts Suzuki), Jake Weimer (Monster Energy Kawasaki), and Broc Tickle (Monster Energy Kawasaki). Alessi overtook Brayton before long, but soon faced pressure from Tickle who was riding extremely well at Budds Creek. Less than ten minutes in, Tickle made the pass on Alessi and secured a second place finish in the moto.

Soon after he was passed by Tickle, Alessi had Weimer on his back. To Alessi’s dismay, he lost third to Weimer and ended up finishing fourth in front of Brayton. Andrew Short (L and MC Honda) followed Brayton across the finish line by just a few seconds, despite the trail of smoke his bike began emitting with five minutes still left on the clock. Ryan Sipes (Star Valli Yamaha) impressed everyone by finishing seventh with a broken hand.

450 Moto 2

Dungey had to work a little harder this moto, but not too much; he still managed to pull out a 33 second lead over second place. Alessi took the lead early on and did a great job cutting off Dungey’s lines for about eight minutes. At that point, Dungey’s momentum won out and he took the lead for good.

While Dungey and Alessi where playing cat and mouse out front, this allowed Tickle to ride up right behind them. So when Alessi lost the lead, he had Tickle hounding him once again. About 11 minutes in, Alessi would get caught up a little on a sharp right and hand over second to Tickle. Alessi would be able to hang on to third in this moto, but he definitely seemed frustrated at the end of the day.

A great battle emerged in the final moments of the moto between Weimer and Grant (Jeff Ward Kawasaki) for fourth place. In the last lap, Grant still had a little lead over Weimer, but a mistake in the final section allowed Weimer to pull up right next to him. As they flew off the finish line jump, Weimer just edged Grant out by less then a tenth of a second. Grant must have been disappointed, but he threw Weimer a thumbs up as they rode of the track.

Brett Metcalfe (Yoshimura Suzuki) and Davi Millsaps (JGR Yamaha) pulled in about a second apart for sixth and seventh respectively, while Brayton finished in eighth. Dungey keeps his hold on first in the series with a total of 230 points. Weimer meanwhile got bumped down to third by Alessi, but only by three points.

250 Class

The race for first was a lot more action-packed in the 250 motos. In Moto 1, Ken Roczen (Red Bull KTM) of Germany was able to maintain the lead for most of the race despite some serious pressure from Barcia.

With about four minutes left, Barcia finally makes his move and confidently passes Roczen with a full whip over the finish line jump. Within moments, Roczen would be dropped back another spot by Blake Baggett. Marvin Musquin (Red Bull KTM) took fourth place after Eli Tomac (GEICO Honda) tipped over with about nine minutes left.

In Moto 2, veteran rider Ivan Tedesco (Monster Energy Kawasaki) took the holeshot, but was quickly overtaken by two Europeans, Roczen and Musquin. It was Roczen who once again led the majority of the race, but with just a minute left on the clock, he got caught up by a lapper and Baggett passed him. Baggett went on to capture first place, followed by Roczen and Tomac. Barcia had a pretty rough start this time, but managed to move up from 20th to fifth by the end.