Lap Time Graphs: 2017 Salt Lake City SX

Tomac made everyone look silly through the whoops. Photo by: Ryne Swanberg

The 2017 Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship series, went to Rice-Eccles Stadium for round 15 of the 450SX Championship and the seventh round of the 250SX Western Regional Championship—the Salt Lake City SX.

In the 450SX main event, Monster Energy / Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac spotted Red Bull / KTM’s Ryan Dungey 20 positions and 15 seconds off the start, and he rode arguably the best race of all time to come through the pack and win. The #1 and the #3 shared the red plate heading into Salt Lake City, but Tomac took sole possession of the red plate and the 450SX championship points lead heading into the penultimate round next weekend. Behind Tomac and Dungey, Rockstar Energy / Husqvarna’s Jason Anderson rode a lonely race in third and scored his second podium in a row and his fourth of 2017.

In the battle for the fastest lap inside Rice-Eccles Stadium, Eli Tomac (45.478) was once again untouchable. Dungey was the closest (46.021)—just ahead of Anderson (46.121) and Marvin Musquin (46.161) in third and fourth—but nobody other than the #3 was able to complete a lap in under 46-seconds. Meanwhile, Tomac broke the 46-second barrier in 12 of the 27 laps and did it 11 laps in a row while making passes to the front. In the end, Tomac’s average lap was a head shaking 46.490.

While Tomac was fast everywhere, it’s easy to see where he was making up his time and completing his passes on just about every lap: through the whoops. The whoops were on segment two and Tomac’s fastest segment two time was a mind blowing 4.246 to Dungey’s fastest segment two time of 7.010. Dungey’s 7.010 put him at tenth fastest through the whoops, but nobody came within two seconds a lap of Tomac in that section. We do not normally talk too much about specific segments, but this segment had too much of an impact not to mention.

450SX Main Event Lap Time Graph. Click the riders name in the graph to add and remove them from the graph.

Full 2017 Salt Lake City SX results here>>>

In the seventh 250SX Western Regional Supercross Championship main event of the year, we saw a new champion crowned. Monster Energy / Pro Ciruit / Kawasaki’s Justin Hill came in with an outside chance to clinch the title a round early, and with his third in the main and Star Racing / Yamaha’s Aaron Plessinger‘s DNF—he crashed in the whoops while leading—Justin was crowned the 2017 Western Regional 250SX Champion.

Hill and Monster Energy / Pro Circuit / Kawasaki scored a #1 plate in Salt Lake City, but the Troy Lee Designs / KTM squad owned the main event with Shane McElrath and Mitchell Oldenburg finishing 1-2 in the main. Shane inherited the lead from Plessinger when he went over the bars and cruised it in for the third win of his career. For Mitchell, his second place finish was his second podium in a row—the first two of his career—and the best finish of his journeyman career. It was a huge day for the TLD crew.

The fastest 250SX rider on the night was Aaron Plessinger (46.931). Just like Tomac in the 450SX class, Plessinger sacked up through the whoops, but unfortunately his whoop speed was what ultimately cost him his second win in a row when he went flying over the bars and out of the race.

Plessinger was the only 250SX rider under the 47-second mark, and the rest of the top seven fastest 250SX times were only separated by five-tenths of a second. McElrath (47.527), Hill (47.643), Austin Forkner (47.731), Oldenburg (47.811), Martin Davalos (47.929), and Jimmy Decotis (48.046) were purely separated by consistency only.

250SX Main Event Lap Time Graph. Click the riders name in the graph to add and remove them from the graph.

Updated 2017 250SX West and 450SX Championship Points>>>

250SX vs 450SX Main Event Lap Time Graph. Click the riders name in the graph to add and remove them from the graph.

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