WATCH LIVE: Ken Roczen goes for another Lucas Oil Pro Motocross win at RedBud - MotorSportsTalk

Four hours of live motocross action from historic RedBud are about to get underway, as the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship reaches the halfway point with a critical round of racing that will go a long way toward shaping the outcome of the championship races in both classes.

Although it may feel like Ken Roczen has dominated the 450 Class this year – statistically, he’s clearly at the head of the field – he is only leading his Red Bull KTM teammate Ryan Dungey by 16 points in the championship race. That means that one bad moto or one ill-timed DNF could easily swing the points lead and the momentum from Roczen to Dungey.

Having finished on the podium in all ten motos this season, Roczen’s consistency is incredible, but he started off strong last year as well when he was racing for the 250 Class championship. Roczen held the points lead for much of the season, but Eli Tomac hung close, and at the ninth round of the series, Roczen finally made one key mistake – he crashed in a moto, surrendered the points lead to Tomac and never got it back. Sometimes that’s all it takes, so as good as Roczen has looked thus far in 2014, he can’t back off the throttle now.

Jeremy Martin is currently learning that lesson the hard way in the 250 Class. Through the first two-and-a-half rounds, the Yamalube/Star Racing/Yamaha rider looked unstoppable and left his competition with a daunting amount of points to make up in the championship race. In the five motos since then, he’s only recorded one top-five finish and has seen has lead dwindle down to eight points over teammate Cooper Webb and 17 points over Blake Baggett.

This will be an important race for Martin, Webb and Baggett. Webb and Baggett were the best riders a week ago at Muddy Creek and seem to be developing a competitive rivalry after Baggett stole the Moto 1 win from Webb with a last-second pass that nearly resulted in a photo finish. Martin needs to re-assert himself as a frontrunner today before he ends up ceding the points lead.

RedBud is also home to the most iconic feature on the circuit – LaRocco’s Leap. This giant jump will be a make-or-break obstacle, rewarding the riders brave enough to launch themselves over it with faster lap times.

First motos begin at 1 P.M. ET and can be seen live on MAVTV. NBC will televise the second 450 Class moto live at 3 P.M. ET, then NBCSN will wrap up the coverage with the second 250 Class moto live at 4 P.M. ET.

All four motos can also be seen live online on ProMotocross.com and NBC Sports Live Extra. Click here to access the Live Extra stream.

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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