2022 MotoTrials Round One Results

Cycle News Staff | April 5, 2022

Defending AMA MotoTrials Champion Pat Smage picked up right where he left off last year—winning. The FactoryOne Sherco team rider dominated both days of competition at the Trials Training Center in Sequatchie, Tennessee, April 2-3.

Pat Smage at 2022 MotoTrials round one — **Defending champ Pat Smage won the opening two rounds of the 2022 AMA MotoTrials Championship at the Trials Training Center in Tennessee.**

Photos by Steph Vetterly

Smage finished well clear of his nearest main competitor, Josh Roper, both days, each day counting as a round in the championship.

Smage dropped just four points to Roper’s 32 after the first day of competition.

“Today started out pretty shaky I would say!” Smage said. “I didn’t feel that confident or comfortable from the start, as I hit my skid plate and my boot on a few rocks. After that, I started getting frustrated and wasn’t having fun. From there, I changed my mindset to have fun and not focus on the final placement. You never know how long you will have to ride Nationals, so I decided to just go have fun and not worry if I won or lost, and surprisingly, I didn’t dab from there, I cleaned the rest of the day.”

Day (round) two was much closer between Smage and the GasGas rider, Roper. After the first of three loops, Smage led by just one mark over Roper, 6-7. Smage managed to gain another two marks on Roper in loop two and a clean ride in section three sealed the deal for Smage, finishing the day a total of 10 marks ahead of Roper, 7-17.

2022 MotoTrials round one podium — **(L-R) Daniel Blanc-Gonnet (fourth), Josh Roper (second), Pat Smage (first), Alexander Myers and Will Myers made up the five-rider podium on Sunday.**

“Overall, it went really well, but I started off with a big mistake in section six,” Roper said. “I took one more point on the loop, so I was a bit frustrated, but I knew what I needed to do to clean it up. I did have another dab there on the second loop but went clean on the third. I had some good rides and some shaky rides that I really had to work for to stay clean. In the end, I am happy with the result.” CN