Main Event Lap Time Graphs: 2016 Atlanta SX

Marvin Musquin was the fastest 450SX rider in Atlanta for the first time in his career. Photo by: Simon Cudby

The 2016 Atlanta Supercross and round eight of the 2016 Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship series, went to Atlanta’s Georgia Dome for round nine of the 450SX Championship and the debut round for the 250SX Eastern Regional Championship. In the 450SX main event, Red Bull / KTM’s Ryan Dungey stalked his teammate Marvin Musquin for nineteen laps before taking advantage of a mistake and taking his fifth win of 2016. With the win, Dungey increased his points lead to comfortable thirty-three point gap over RCH / Soaring Eagle / Suzuki’s Ken Roczen—who could only salvage a sixth in Atlanta after an early race tip over.

In the first 250SX East main event of 2016, Rockstar / Husqvarana’s Martin Davalos went wire-to-wire for the first win of the season and the third of his veteran 250SX career. GEICO / Honda’s Malcolm Stewart and Star Racing / Yamaha’s Aaron Plessinger joined Martin on the podium in Atlanta.

In the battle for fastest 450SX lap time (45.783) that honor went to Musquin for the first time in his eight-race 450SX career. The #25 got out front early, and when the white flag waved, the Frenchman looked well on his way to the first-ever win of his career. Unfortunately for Marvin, a slight distraction while lapping Yoshimura / Suzuki’s James Stewart caused a mistake and allowed the #1—who had the second fastest single lap (45.943) and the fastest average lap time (46.660) in Atlanta—to get around for the last lap pass.

The third (46.0424), fourth (46.193) and fifth (46.500) fastest times of the night were clocked by Monster / Yamaha’s Chad Reed, BTO Sports / KTM’s Davi Millsaps and HRC / Honda’s Cole Seely. Both Chad and Davi’s fastest lap time positions perfectly corresponded with their finishing spots, but for Seely, his fifth fastest lap translated into a tenth place finish. The #14 got into a physical block pass battle with Rockstar / Husqvarna’s Jason Anderson and needed that speed to rebound from a twelfth place start and a crash.

Full 2016 Atlanta SX results here>>>

In the 250SX main event, the honor of fastest single 250SX lap time (47.027) went to Martin Davalos. Davalos got to the front early and recorded that time on lap two while trying to put some distance between himself and Malcolm Stewart—who finished second and clocked the second fastest lap (47.526) on the night. It was a surprise to see Martin nearly a half a second faster than Malcolm in the main event after Malcolm set the fastest lap in qualifying and in the heat races.

The third (47.821), fourth (47.874), and fifth (48.270) fastest laps in the 250SX main event were logged in by Star Racing / Yamaha’s Aaron Plessinger, Troy Lee Designs / KTM’s Justin Hill and Star Racing / Yamaha’s Jeremy Martin. For both Aaron and Justin, they needed those fast laps to get themselves into the top five after atrocious starts to their mains. Aaron’s charge forward was impressive—going from 9th to 3rd—but nowhere near as impressive as Hill’s charge from twenty-first at the end of lap one to a fourth place finish.

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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