Steve Cox | July 28, 2018
2018 Washougal 450cc National MX Results: Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac came to Washougal riding a wave after his epic performance a week earlier in Millville, Minnesota. He set fast qualifying time at Washougal Motocross Park and then calmly worked his way by the AutoTrader/Yoshimura Suzuki duo of local boy Justin Hill and then holeshot artist Justin Bogle to take the moto-one lead and simply run away with the win.
Tomac won by over 11 seconds over Red Bull KTM’s Marvin Musquin and Honda’s Ken Roczen, who worked his way forward from a mediocre start.
2018 Washougal 450cc National MX Results
But it was the second moto that really illustrated what Tomac can do on his KX450F. Bogle got the holeshot again – his sixth in 8 motos since he returned to racing – but Roczen took the early lead and began stretching it out immediately while Musquin worked his way through from the tail end of the top five and Tomac came from outside the top 10. It only took four laps for Tomac to get up to fifth place, but by then Musquin was second and Roczen was walking away with the moto win.
To complicate matters, Tomac went down just after he had moved past Rocky Mountain ATV/MC KTM’s Blake Baggett and Monster Energy Yamaha’s Justin Barcia to sit third, six laps into the race.
He lost third to Barcia temporarily, but took it back a few laps later and then just started putting in heaters.
2018 Washougal 450cc National MX Results
On laps 10 and 11, Tomac’s laptimes were in the 2:14s, with lap 11’s 2:14.395 over two seconds faster than the fastest lap set by any other racer on the track. And at that point in the race, those 2:14s were 3-4 seconds per lap faster than Musquin in second and Roczen out front. As he blew by Musquin, Tomac slowed a little bit as he began fighting to fix his pants, which had come undone – probably from the sheer violence of his pace around the Washougal circuit.
Despite the wardrobe malfunction, Tomac quickly caught Roczen out front and passed him for the lead as they crossed the line to get the two-lap board.
Tomac went on to win the moto with room to spare over Roczen, Musquin, Barcia, and Baggett.
2018 Washougal 450cc National MX Results
Tomac took the overall win with a 1-1 score over Roczen’s 3-2 and Musquin’s 2-3. Then came Barcia’s 5-4 and Baggett’s 6-5.
Tomac now leads Musquin in the championship by 15 points with three rounds left to run. After a weekend off, the series resumes August 11th at Unadilla Valley Sports Center in New Berlin, New York.
2018 Washougal 450cc National MX Results
2018 Washougal 450cc National MX Results
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