Ryan Dungey was the fastest man at round number three. Photo by: Hoppenworld
The 2014 Toyota Thunder Valley National and round three of the 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship is in the books. At the first two rounds of the series, it was the Red Bull/KTM teammates, Ryan Dungey and Ken Roczen, swapping the top two spots in the 450MX class, while the Star Racing/Yamaha teammates, Jeremy Martin and Cooper Webb, have dominated the top two spots of 250MX class—going 1-1-1-1 and 2-2-2-2 over the first four motos. With the series leaving California and heading to the thin air of Colorado, could any of the myriad of contenders stop the orange and blue teammates from sweeping the top-two spots on the box.
Well, this time the answer was yes. In the 450MX class, Yoshimura/Suzuki’s James Stewart became the fourth moto winner over the first five motos, and with a third place finish in moto two, James finished second overall on the day. Battling near the front with James was MuscleMilk/Honda’s Trey Canard. Trey missed the box with a 3-4 score, but the likable Oklahoman is definitely closing the gap on the KTMs. While Roczen (2-1) and Dungey (4-2) still occupied two of the three podium spots, James was able to get in the middle of them owning the class and Trey showed he’s not far behind. In the end, Roczen left Colorado with a twelve-point lead over Dungey and a thirty-point lead over JS7 in third.
In the first moto of the 250MX class, it looked like Martin and Webb were on their way to continuing their dominance, but while Martin held up his end by winning the moto, the perfect 1-2 streak ended when Webb crashed out of the second spot. Webb remounted to finish ninth in the opening moto, and from that moment on, the Star Racing duo looked human for the first time in the 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. Both riders struggled in moto two with Martin going down and the two of them finishing sixth and seventh for third (Martin) and eighth (Webb) overall on the day. With the boys in blue not continuing the streak, it was Monster/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki’s Blake Baggett (4-1) and GEICO/Honda’s Justin Bogle (3-2) stepping up to take over the top two spots on the box.
In the lap time battle, it was Ryan Dungey with the fastest lap (2:04.772) over his teammate for the first time in 2014. The #5 had the fastest lap of the day in moto one, but unfortunately for the former two-time 450MX Champ, that did not translate into a moto win at Thunder Valley. Later, Roczen rebounded with the fastest lap in moto two (2:06.444) by over a half second on the rough circuit. For the German, it did translate into a moto and overall win.
In the 250MX class, it was the surprise of the day throwing down the fastest lap of the day en-route to the best moto finish of his career. Troy Lee Designs/Honda’s Jessy Nelson clocked a 2:07.634 while sprinting away from the pack in moto one. The #50 sprinted out to a surprising ten-second lead before a mistake allowed Martin and Webb to catch and pass him. Jessy went on to finish second in moto one after Webb made a mistake of his own, but a bad second moto (9th) pushed Jessy back to fourth overall.
You can check out the top ten 250 and 450 times from the Thunder Valley National below. Scroll down to see how the four motos broke down lap-for-lap on the extremely rough circuit with MotoXAddicts’ lap-time comparison charts.
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Full 2014 Thunder Valley National results here>>>
| Top 10 450MX Times | Top 10 250MX Times |
|---|---|
| 1. Ryan Dungey – 2:04.772 2. Trey Canard – 2:05.110 3. James Stewart – 2:05.133 4. Ken Roczen – 2:05.165 5. Josh Grant – 2:06.019 6. Andrew Short – 2:07.231 7. Malcolm Stewart – 2:07.323 8. Jake Weimer – 2:07.564 9. Brett Metcalfe – 2:07.700 10. Weston Peick – 2:07.713 |
1. Jessy Nelson – 2:07.634 2. Justin Bogle – 2:07.688 3. Jeremy Martin – 2:07.962 4. Cooper Webb – 2:08.191 5. Blake Baggett – 2:09.185 6. Jason Anderson – 2:09.637 7. Marvin Musquin – 2:09.806 8. Cole Seely – 2:10.333 9. Justin Hill – 2:10.765 10. Christophe Pourcel – 2:10.937 |
Each graph charts the lap times of the top five finishers in each moto. 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.
Click here for the 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship standings>>>
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