Las Vegas, NV (May 4, 2019) – In just his second full season in professional supercross,19-year-old Illinois native Chase Sexton collected his first professional supercross title. Via a controlled fourth-place finish at the season finale, the GEICO Honda rider scored the 2019 AMA 250SX Eastern Regional Championship on Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium.
“It feels super good, it hasn’t really sunk in yet, being 19 years old and winning my first championship is unbelievable,” he said. “It was the longest 15 minutes plus 1 [lap] I’ve ever done, track was gnarly. I was fourth or fifth the whole moto. Yeah it was a super sketchy track, and the whoops were gnarly, had some moments with my teammate, and there were some hay bales knocked out on the track. It was really hard to decide if it was a good move or bad move to go it, but it couldn’t have worked out better.
“I was struggling a little bit in practice with myself and the bike and really myself to be honest,” continued Sexton. “I wasn’t putting laps together. It was hard, to be honest this whole week was stressful for me. To be in this spot in the last week is pretty gnarly, but I felt I handled it well. The heat race really turned it around, to get that win, it took some pressure off. I wasn’t too nervous heading into the main event. I just got a good start and put it all together.”
Sexton held the championship lead heading into the race and only needed a sixth even if the rider closest to him in points, Justin Cooper, won. Cooper took eighth, and Sexton collected fourth. Sexton spent most of the race around his teammates RJ Hampshire and Cameron McAdoo, who rode well to battle for second and third place. McAdoo logged the best run of his supercross career, getting to second and even closing on race leader Dylan Ferrandis at one point. Late in the race Hampshire put in a charge to retake second, with McAdoo grabbing his first career podium in third.
“Was a really cool day for my whole team,” said Hampshire. “I rode well in practice and felt like my bike was working good. Got the holeshot in the heat and also the main. I struggled bad in the first half of the main and really had to take a couple steps back to regroup and figure out what I needed to change. For once I actually felt like a veteran and made a pretty smart call! I even let Chase by because I was getting so sketchy and I didn’t want to end up going down and taking him out with me. I followed him for a couple laps to hopefully learn something in the whoops. It started coming together then I saw my pit board said “4 laps, all out”. I went for it and it paid off! I was able to get to second. Really happy to see the team have so much success on the night!”
McAdoo finished right behind Hampshire.
“Honestly it was a decision I made,” said McAdoo. “I was struggling in qualifying, heat race wasn’t good. I started fourth in the main, I got into second. I saw Ferrandis in front of me and instead of saying “Let me try to latch onto this guy” I thought “Let’s try to get him. Let’s try to pass him.” Thinking that way helped me so much. All of a sudden, before I knew it, there was six minutes to go. It was just a mindset. Mentally this is one of the biggest jumps I’ve ever made in my career.”
Hampshire ended up fourth in the final 250SX West Region standings, and McAdoo was fifth.
The team gets a weekend off before the opening round of the Pro Motocross Championship at
Hangtown near Sacramento, California on May 18th.
GEICO Honda Results
Las Vegas Supercross
2. RJ Hampshire
3. Cameron McAdoo
4. Chase Sexton
