A rough day for Justin Barcia and second-place finish by Eli Tomac caused a shakeup at the top of the Supercross Rankings after Round 3 in San Diego. In addition to taking the points’ lead by one over Chase Sexton, Tomac also currently has the top spot in the Power Rankings by an equally thin margin, making him the third rider in three weeks to be ranked No. 1.
Tomac finished second in both his heat and feature last week, giving him the best overall performance through three races. In the first two events, slow starts caused him to face an uphill battle and he managed to finish only sixth in the Anaheim 1 feature. In Oakland he earned his first heat win, but slipped to fourth in the feature.
Chase Sexton also climbed one position in the Supercross Power Rankings this week on the strength of last week’s feature win - the first of his 450 career. Heat wins in the first two weeks have been impressive, but his average finish over six races is dragged down by a ninth in the Oakland feature.
MORE: Chase Sexton, Michael Mosiman earn first career victories at San Diego
Last week in San Diego, Cooper Webb told the media it was time for him to start winning and then went out and immediately scored his first heat victory of the season. A modest start in the feature relegated him to fourth and kept Webb from climbing higher in the rankings, but with a three-position advancement, he had the greatest improvement in the field.
Barcia’s bad San Diego outing started with a crash early in the main and was exacerbated by a penalty from Supercross that docked him a position for rough riding. The penalty came after an incident with Justin Bogle. Barcia finished ninth in the feature, which was the first time he has been outside the top five in any of his races.
Bogle was disqualified for intentionally forcing Barcia off track later in the race and is currently ranked outside the top 20 in 23rd.
Who had the @HARDER Sweetest Pass from San Diego ⁉️ 🍋 #SupercrossLIVE #SweetestPass pic.twitter.com/1CgUgS4eaT
— Supercross LIVE! (@SupercrossLIVE) January 24, 2022
Ken Roczen rounds out the top five this week after falling in the race and tumbling one position in the Supercross Power Rankings. Roczen’s trip to the dirt at San Diego came after Jason Anderson hit his back wheel during a pass for position.
Anderson climbed one spot from eighth to seventh after winning his first heat of the season last week.
450 Rankings
1. Eli Tomac (last week: 2); [1 heat win]
2. Chase Sexton (3); [1 feature win, 2 heat wins]
3. Cooper Webb (6); [1 heat win]
4. Justin Barcia (1)
5. Ken Roczen (4); [1 feature, 1 heat win]
6. Malcolm Stewart (6)
7. Jason Anderson (8); [1 feature win; 1 heat win]
8. Aaron Plessinger (5)
9. Marvin Musquin (9)
10. Dylan Ferrandis (10)
11. Justin Brayton (10)
12. Dean Wilson (13)
13. Shane McElrath (14)
14. Max Anstie (15)
15 (tie). Joey Savatgy (11)
15 (tie). Adam Cianciarulo (12)
17. Mitchell Oldenburg (NA)
18. Brandon Hartranft (16)
19. Fredrik Noren (NA)
20. Kyle Chisholm (19)
Christian Craig entered San Diego with a perfect record of two heat and two feature wins in the opening two rounds. He remained perfect through his San Diego heat, but when he hit a Tuff Blox in Turn 1, he had an uphill battle for the remainder of the feature.
Craig remounted and arguably had the best performance of the night. He wrested the final step of the podium away from Vince Friese on the final lap and held onto his top spot in the Supercross Rankings after Round 3.
Hunter Lawrence’s ascent to second in the Power Rankings comes after he scored his first heat win of the season. It is also partly attributable to the fact that Seth Hammaker was unable to mount up for San Diego after taking a hard crash in practice.
Michael Mosiman scored his first 250 West feature win over Lawrence last week after finishing second in his heat. If not for a sixth-place finish in the Anaheim 1 feature, he would have a perfect record of top-five results this year.
Last week, Vince Friese was locked in a three-way tie for fifth in the standings with Jo Shimoda and Garrett Marchbanks. With a fourth in the feature, Friese came up one position shy of sweeping the podium at San Diego and that allowed him to take sole possession of fourth in the rankings this week.
Meanwhile, Shimoda retained the fifth position in the standings despite being a victim of the same Lap 1 incident that claimed Craig. Shimoda also remounted and climbed to fifth at the checkers. That was his best feature finish of the season.
After sitting out Oakland with a concussion, Jalek Swoll returned to action this week and debuted at 13th in the Supercross Power Rankings. His seventh-place performance in both his heat and feature at San Diego is currently weighed down by his last-place finish in the Anaheim 1 heat that injured him in the first place.
250 Rankings
1. Christian Craig (1); [2 feature, 3 heat wins]
2. Hunter Lawrence (3); [1 heat win]
3. Michael Mosiman (4); [1 feature; 2 heat wins]
4. Vince Friese (5)
5. Jo Shimoda (5)
6. Nate Thrasher (8)
7. Garrett Marchbanks (5)
8. Chris Blose (9)
9. Carson Mumford (10)
10. Cole Thompson (11)
11. Robbie Wageman (12)
12. Carson Brown (15)
13. Jalek Swoll (NA)
14. Ryan Surratt (14)
15. Dominique Thury (13)
16. Dylan Walsh (21)
17. Logan Karnow (16)
18. Dilan Schwartz (20
19. Devin Harriman (17)
20. Derek Kelley (26)
POWER RANKINGS AFTER ROUND 1 AT ANAHEIM: Ken Roczen, Christian Craig have a perfect weekend
POWER RANKINGS AFTER ROUND 2 AT OAKLAND: Justin Barcia climbs to the top spot