Main Event Lap Time Graphs: 2016 Glendale (Phoenix) SX

Ken Roczen was the fastest overall rider for the first time in 2016 and scored his first win of the season. Photo by: Hoppenworld

The 2016 Glendale Supercross and round five of the 2016 Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship series, headed out of California for the first time this year. The series has been making a stop in Phoenix, Arizona since 1986 and specifically at Chase Field for the last seventeen years, but the race was moved to Glendale, Arizona’s University of Phoenix Stadium—home to the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals—for the first time in it’s history last weekend.

In the 450SX class, RCH/Soaring Eagle/Suzuki’s Ken Roczen is now listed as the first-ever winner of the Glendale SX, while GEICO/Honda’s Christian Craig slotted his spot in the history books as well with his first-ever 250SX main event win. Ken’s win stopped Red Bull/KTM’s Ryan Dungey from winning four main events in a row for the first time in his career and moved the #94 up to second in the Championship. Christian’s win stopped the defending Western Regional 250SX Champion, Yamalube/Star Racing/Yamaha’s Cooper Webb from taking over the points lead. Now both Webb and Monster/PC/Kawasaki’s Joey Savatgy will have the red background next weekend in San Diego.

In the battle for fastest 450SX lap time at the new venue, that trophy belongs to Roczen (1:02.548) for the first time this season. The #94 got the start and used his sprint speed to establish a gap while the 450SX Championship points leader, Dungey, was buried in the pack. Monster Energy/Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac had the second fastest lap on the night (1:02.602), but Dungey—who had the third fastest lap (1:02.727)—used the fastest overall average lap time (1:03.575) to reel in the #3 and steal the second spot on the box away.

The fourth (1:03.219) and fifth (1:03.367) fastest times of the night were clocked by Rockstar/Husqvarna’s Jason Anderson and Red Bull/KTM’s Marvin Musquin. Both Anderson and Musquin used their hard-pack speed to fight back from bad starts. Anderson started ninth and finished fourth while Musquin started eleventh, worked his way up to sixth and literally got pushed back to ninth. While Anderson and Musquin had the fourth and fifth fastest lap, the ninth fastest lap (Chad Reed) was only a few tenths slower. The battling going on just inside the top ten was definitely reflective of how close everyone’s speed was.

Full 2016 Glendale SX results here>>>

In the 250SX main event, the honor of fastest single 250SX lap time (1:03.650)—ninth fastest overall lap time— and the fastest average lap (1:04.768) time went to Cooper Webb for the fourth time in ’16. The #1 laid down his fast lap on lap six while trying to work his way up to Craig’s rear wheel. Webb was able to find the #38’s rear wheel, but before he could make a pass stick, he washed out his front wheel and went down. Webb was able to remount before Savatgy—who had the 2nd fastest lap (1:04.196)—could catch him, but Craig was too far gone to catch. Craig was only able to record the third fastest lap on the night, but he used determination and the second fastest average lap time (1:04.800) to score the first win of his career.

The fourth (1:04.520) and fifth (54.857) fastest lap in the 250SX main event were logged in by CycleTrader/Yamaha’s Colt Nichols and TLD/KTM’s Mitchell Oldenburg. Nichols fought back from another bad start to finish fifth, and Oldenburg now has two fourth place finishes in a row.

Updated 2016 250SX West and 450SX Championship Points>>>

Directions on how use graphs below: Each graph below charts the lap times of the top five finishers in each main event, as well as the top three 250SX riders matched up against the top three 450SX finishers. You can run your cursor over the lines to see which rider the line signifies and that rider’s time for each lap. Click on a rider’s name on the right to remove them from the chart so you can run riders’ times against each other heads up. Also, riders are colored to match their bike brand.

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