Ryan Dungey gets first Supercross win of season at Anaheim III - MotorSportsTalk

Now that he has the championship lead, Ryan Dungey has no intention of letting it go. The Red Bull KTM rider captured his first 450SX victory of the season Saturday night at Anaheim III.

In the main event, Dungey got a good start and tracked down holeshot winner Blake Baggett to take over the lead on the second lap. From there, Dungey was able to open up a gap of a few seconds over the rest of the field on his way to the checkered flag.

After losing the lead, Baggett was shuffled back to seventh place by the end of the race, but it was a new career-best for the 450 Class rookie.

Another rookie in the class, Cole Seely, turned in his best ride of the season with a second-place finish. Eli Tomac made a late charge to pass Ken Roczen on the final lap to secure a third-place result and a spot on the podium.

Five rounds into the season, Dungey has now increased his title lead to 11 points over Roczen thanks to his consistency. Dungey has yet to finish worse than fourth, and he has seemingly gotten better with each passing week.

In the 250 Class, the expected fireworks between Cooper Webb and Tyler Bowers never materialized, but there was still drama.

When the main event got underway, Zach Osborne’s gate failed to drop due to a malfunction. Officials eventually made the decision to red flag the race and restart it from scratch, but not before five laps had already been competed. Webb had just taken over the lead and was fired up about having to completely restart the race.

It wouldn’t matter much for Webb though. When the gate dropped for a second time, he got another strong start and found himself trailing Jessy Nelson. Nelson successfully fended him off for eight laps, but Webb eventually got around him en route to his third 250SX win in the last four races.

Nelson held on to finish second, while Webb’s rookie teammate on the Yamalube/Star Racing/Yamaha squad, Aaron Plessinger, earned a career best third-place finish.

With the win, Webb was able to open up an even bigger cushion in the points lead. Two of his biggest challengers – Tyler Bowers and Malcolm Stewart – both had crashes that shuffled them to the rear of the field and left them scrambling to salvage points.

The series resumes next Saturday in San Diego.

Anaheim III 450SX Results
1. Ryan Dungey
2. Cole Seely (-2.3 seconds)
3. Eli Tomac
4. Ken Roczen
5. Trey Canard

450SX Point Standings
1. Ryan Dungey, 107
2. Ken Roczen, 96
3. Eli Tomac, 84
4. Trey Canard, 84
5. Jason Anderson, 74

Anaheim III 250SX Results
1. Cooper Webb
2. Jessy Nelson (-3.6 seconds)
3. Aaron Plessinger
4. Zach Osborne
5. Matt Bisceglia

250SX Point Standings
1. Cooper Webb, 111
2. Jessy Nelson, 93
3. Zach Osborne, 87
4. Tyler Bowers, 84
5. Justin Hill, 78

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports