Red Bull GRC: Rhys Millen, Hyundai score Daytona win - MotorSportsTalk

Rhys Millen became the fifth different winner of the 2014 Red Bull Global Rallycross season this afternoon at Daytona International Speedway, beating out Ken Block and Bucky Lasek to score the victory in his Hyundai Veloster.

“It’s just amazing with how strong the car was coming into this weekend,” Millen told NBC after his inaugural Red Bull GRC win. “To have the troubles of blowing an engine yesterday with a cam belt failure – but the car was on point.

“We had the fastest car this weekend, had some respectable driving from the other competitors up front, and we did what we set out to do three years ago.”

Congrats to Rhys Millen on his first ever @RedBullGRC win! Ken Block and Bucky Lasek finish 2nd and 3rd @DISupdates! pic.twitter.com/jY9rGLnzQb

— Daytona IntlSpeedway (@DISupdates) August 23, 2014

Millen, a former world record holder in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, set himself up for the final with a victory in the first semi over Lasek and Patrik Sandell.

Semifinal Two began with contact between Block and Scott Speed in the hairpin section. Speed sustained front-end damage severe enough to knock him out of the race, but just a few turns later, Block was apparently pushed off track by championship leader Nelson Piquet Jr., who took over the point.

A few laps later, Piquet was told by Race Control to serve a stop-and-go penalty, sending him back to third behind Austin Dyne and Tanner Foust. Foust ramped up the pressure on Dyne heading for the final lap, but on the entry to Turn 1, Foust lost control and spun into the tire barriers.

Luckily for him, the damage was minimal enough to allow him to continue in third place, which is where he would take the checkered flag behind Dyne and second-place Piquet.

That led into the last chance qualifier, which was led wire-to-wire by Block with Joni Wiman in second and Sverre Isachsen in third. The fourth and last transfer spot to the final, however, was in doubt up to the very end.

On Lap 2 of the 4-lap LCQ, Speed and his wounded VW took the joker to move past Steve Arpin for fourth. The final lap saw Arpin draw close to Speed, but he went off-course, ensuring that Speed would hold on and make the main event.

In the 8-lap final, Millen quickly pulled away from a tight battle for second between Block and Dyne that saw them flip-flop positions through the hairpins before Block came up with it.

On Lap 3, Lasek used the joker to take the third and final podium position from Dyne, only to come under attack from a charging Foust late in the race. Foust got the inside position on Lasek but took the entrance to the hairpins section too tight and got turned around, while Speed was spotted exiting his car after running into a barrier.

Away from it all was Millen, who went on to a well-deserved win.

Red Bull GRC now moves on to a pivotal doubleheader weekend at the Port of Los Angeles on Saturday, September 20 and Sunday, September 21. Piquet will enter Tinseltown with a 40-point lead in the standings over Block.

NBC and NBC Sports Live Extra (online/mobile) will air each day’s final live at 5 p.m. ET.

RED BULL GLOBAL RALLYCROSS AT DAYTONA – Final
Unofficial Results
1. 67-Rhys Millen
2. 43-Ken Block, -1.8 seconds
3. 81-Bucky Lasek, -11.4 seconds
4. 18-Patrik Sandell, -17.4 seconds
5. 11-Sverre Isachsen, -28.4 seconds
6. 34-Tanner Foust, -49.2 seconds
7. 31-Joni Wiman, -55.9 seconds
8. 07-Nelson Piquet Jr., -67.2 seconds
9. 14-Austin Dyne, one lap down
10. 77-Scott Speed, one lap down

Follow @estradawriting

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.

Read more about SuperMotocross