After three Triple Crown feature results were tallied in Monster Energy Supercross Round 5 at Glendale, Ariz., Eli Tomac emerged as the first repeat winner of 2022 and extended his points’ lead over Chase Sexton to 11.
The Triple Crown format means three opportunities to make a mistake on a race start, but Tomac was flawless. He earned the holeshot in the first two races and started third in the final event when all he needed to do was finish fourth or better to take the overall victory.
Supercross began their last two seasons with four different winners, and Tomac replicated another theme by snapping that streak with consecutive wins.
Last year at Indianapolis, Ken Roczen ended Supercross’ streak with back-to-back victories for the first time since 2017. Tomac didn’t have to wait quite as long. He won consecutive races at Daytona in March 2020 in the last race before COVID-19 interrupted that season and then took the first of seven races at Salt Lake City more than two months later.
RESULTS: Click here for 450 Results; Click here for 250 Results
Malcolm Stewart earned a career-best finish of second in the Triple Crown with consistently strong finishes in each race. He failed to win one of the events, but stood on the podium twice and had a worst result of fourth.
After getting off to a slow start with two falls in the first race and an 11th-place finish, Chase Sexton finished third in Race 2 and won the final moto to finish third overall. He now stands second in the standings with a four-point advantage over Jason Anderson.
After a rough start to the night, @_ChaseSexton was able to bounce back and secure a podium overall finish and the final 450SX Main Event win of the night 🥉#SupercrossLIVE pic.twitter.com/kSZUXWngaG
— Supercross LIVE! (@SupercrossLIVE) February 6, 2022
Click here for 450 Race 1 results | Race 2 | Race 3
For most of the night, it appeared Anderson would be Tomac’s strongest competition. He finished second in Race 1 and was running in that position in the second moto before jumping wide and getting hung up on a Tuff Blox. The mistake dropped him to 12th in Race 2, but he rebounded and finished second to Sexton in the final event to take fourth overall.
Roczen rounded out the top five with finishes of 4-6-7.
Click here for Round 5 450 Overall results | Rider Points
Hunter Lawrence became the second first-time winner of the season in 250 West. He won the second race and finished in the runner-up position in the other two events, which finally allowed him to cut into Christian Craig’s points’ lead. Lawrence trails by eight with five races remaining.
Although this is Lawrence’s first win, it continues a streak of perfect podium finishes in the first five rounds of the season.
The overall results could have been much worse for Craig. He took a hard fall in Race 2 and was propelled headfirst off his Yamaha when an aggressive pass by Vince Friese went catastrophically wrong early in that moto. Craig was able to remount and climb to fourth at the checkers. He won the first and third races to finish second overall.
250SX Main Event 2️⃣ win goes to @HunterLawrencee 🔥 🇦🇺 #SupercrossLIVE pic.twitter.com/4z29aIou9R
— Supercross LIVE! (@SupercrossLIVE) February 6, 2022
Click here for 250 West Race 1 results | Race 2 | Race 3
Three was an important number for Jo Shimoda. Finishing third overall with a pair of third-place finishes gave him his first podium of 2022.
Garrett Marchbanks finished fourth overall with consistent results of 4-6-6.
Click here for 250 West Overall results | 250 West Rider Points
Friese also remounted after his Race 2 accident with Craig, but was able to climb to only 10th. Combined with a third in Race 1 and fourth in Race 3, he rounded out the top five.
The night was disastrous for Michael Mosiman, who entered Glendale with back-to-back podiums that included a win in San Diego. He crashed in traffic on the first lap of Race 1 and finished 10th. Craig’s accident in the second race gave him hope that he might be able to gain points on the series leader when Mosiman finished second in that moto to Craig’s fourth.
Mosiman suffered another hard crash in the final race and finished ninth overall. He is currently third in the standings, 23 points behind Craig and 15 behind Lawrence.
POINTS, RESULTS AFTER ROUND 1 AT ANAHEIM: Ken Roczen, Cooper Webb renew rivalry with 1-2 finish
POINTS, RESULTS AFTER ROUND 2 AT OAKLAND: Jason Anderson wins, Ken Roczen struggles to tighten points’ standings
POINTS, RESULTS AFTER ROUND 3 AT SAN DIEGO: First time wins for Chase Sexton (450s) and Michael Mosiman (250s)
POINTS, RESULTS AFTER ROUND 4 AT ANAHEIM: Eli Tomac solidifies points’ lead with first win of 2022