Supercross 2023: Results and points after Nashville

By Apr 30, 2023, 2:48 PM EDT
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From muddy conditions in New Jersey to a dry daytime race in Nashville, the Monster Energy Supercross results were shaken up at Nissan Stadium in Round 15 of the season as Chase Sexton earned his fourth win of the season.

Eli Tomac grabbed the holeshot, but Chase Sexton won the Nashville race. – Feld Motor Sports

The three championship contenders each had radically different experiences in Nashville, with the most dramatic event coming in the first heat. On Lap 1 Eli Tomac and Cooper Webb were embroiled in a battle for first. Webb dove inside of Tomac in Turn 1 and startled him, which pushed him slightly out of the groove. Tomac returned the favor in Turn 3, but when Webb pushed wide, he lost traction with his front wheel and crashed. With nowhere to go, Adam Cianciarulo ran over Webb’s helmet at speed.

Webb was alert and standing before being transported to the hospital for evaluation. On Sunday morning following the race, Webb announced he is forced to end his Supercross season with a concussion.

RESULTS: Click here for full 450 Results; Click here for 250 Results

After a series of mistakes seemed to drop Sexton from the title hunt, including numerous crashes and the loss of points for jumping in a red cross flag section, Sexton has ridden perfectly in two of the last three rounds with wins at Atlanta and Nashville. Sexton assumed second place in the championship with Webb’s injury and the Nashville Supercross results shaved three points off Tomac’s lead.

With an 18-point gap, Tomac needs to make a mistake in one of the final two rounds to allow Sexton to have a shot at the title.

Tomac finished second in Nashville and after the race indicated he would be content to podium in Denver and Salt Lake City in the final two rounds. Finishing in the top three has become a regular habit for the defending champion because he’s stood on the box 11 times in 15 rounds. He has also finished outside the top five twice.

After earning only two in the first 12 rounds, Ken Roczen scored his third consecutive podium with a third-place finish. In the post-race news conference he indicated that the reason for his improvement is that he’s riding more relaxed and is back to having fun after his move to Suzuki.

Click here for 450 Heat 1 | Heat 2 | Last Chance Qualifier | Lap Chart

Colt Nichols earned his first top five of the season four rounds after returning to the series following a head injury. Even with the missed races, Nichols sits 12th in the standings, well inside the mark needed to qualify for the for the inaugural SuperMotocross World Championship.

In fifth at Nashville in Supercross Round 15, Justin Hill also earned his first top-five of 2023, improving on his previous best result of seventh in Detroit. His brother Josh Hill finished 10th, making this the second time in 2023 they both scored top-10s in the same race. Their first pair of top-10s came at Detroit.

Jason Anderson narrowly missed the top five in sixth, but considering he was forced to work his way into the main through the Last Chance Qualifier, he wasn’t complaining. Anderson crashed hard in his heat and failed to finish that race.

Click here for 450 Overall results | Rider Points | Manufacturer Points

Hunter Lawrence clinched his 250 East championship in style. He stalked Jordon Smith in the early stages of the Nashville Supercross race and when Smith jumped wide on Lap 6 of 17, the result of his lost momentum handed the lead to Lawrence. The eventual champion wasn’t able to ride away from the field, however. Jo Shimoda stayed within four seconds of the leader as Lawrence managed the gap to keep from making a mistake.

Jo Shimoda kept Hunter Lawrence honest during the Nashville main. – Feld Motor Sports

Shimoda missed the first part of the season with a broken collarbone and he’s had a reason to be happy in each of the last three rounds he’s made. Shimoda scored a top-five in his first race back in Atlanta, won the 250 East heat race last week in New Jersey and scored his first podium of 2023 with the second-place finish this week.

The championship results would look different if Shimoda had made all of the Supercross rounds leading into Nashville.

Click here for 250 Heat 1 | Heat 2 | Last Chance Qualifier | Lap Chart

Smith salvaged a third-place finish to earn his fifth podium of the year. He acknowledged the need to eradicate his mistakes, but after a few tough years is happy to be standing on the box with increased regularity.

Smith’s teammate Haiden Deegan had the fastest bike during the last few laps, but he could not quite close the gap on third. He sent his Yamaha into the final turn hard, but came up a second shy of earning his fourth podium of his freshman season.

Click here for 250 Overall results | 250 East Rider Points | 250 Combined Rider Points

Last week’s winner, Max Anstie finished fifth to score his eighth top five in nine 250 East rounds. He finished second in his heat to Lawrence.

Tom Vialle earned five top-10s in the first six rounds until he fell off the pace in the last two. He got back in the rhythm with a seventh-place finish in Nashville Supercross race, but the result was in question in his heat. Vialle was penalized for jumping in a red cross flag section of the track, but was still credited with sixth.

2023 Results

Round 14: Justin Barcia, Max Anstie win
Round 13: Chase Sexton, Hunter Lawrence win
Round 12: Eli Tomac, Jett Lawrence win
Round 11: Tomac bounces back with sixth win
Round 10: Chace Sexton wins, penalized
Round 9: Ken Roczen wins
Round 8: Tomac wins 7th Daytona
Round 7: Cooper Webb wins second race
Race 6: Tomac, J Lawrence win
Race 5: Webb, H Lawrence win
Race 4: Tomac, H Lawrence win
Race 3: Sexton, Levi Kitchen win
Race 2: Tomac, J Lawrence win
Round 1: Tomac, J Lawrence win

2023 SuperMotocross Power Rankings

Week 14: Justin Barcia, most of top 20, hold steady
Week 13: Barcia leapfrogs the Big Three
Week 12: Eli Tomac gains momentum
Week 11: Cooper Webb, Tomac overtake Chase Sexton
Week 10: Sexton leads with consistency
Week 8: Sexton unseats Tomac
Week 7: Jason Anderson narrowly trails Tomac
Week 6: Perfect Oakland night keeps Tomac first
Week 5: Webb, Sexton close gap
Week 4: Tomac retakes lead
Week 3: Ken Roczen takes the top spot
Week 2: Roczen moves up; Sexton falls
Week 1: Tomac tops 450s; Jett Lawrence 250s

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‘It’s gnarly, bro’: IndyCar drivers face new challenge on streets of downtown Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 7:32 PM EDT
IndyCar Detroit downtown
James Black/Penske Entertainment
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DETROIT – It was the 1968 motion picture, “Winning” when actress Joanne Woodward asked Paul Newman if he were going to Milwaukee in the days after he won the Indianapolis 500 as driver Frank Capua.

“Everybody goes to Milwaukee after Indianapolis,” Newman responded near the end of the film.

Milwaukee was a mainstay as the race on the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 for decades, but since 2012, the first race after the Indy 500 has been Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

This year, there is a twist.

Instead of IndyCar racing at the Belle Isle State Park, it’s the streets of downtown Detroit on a race course that is quite reminiscent of the old Formula One and CART race course that was used from 1982 to 1991.

Formula One competed in the United States Grand Prix from 1982 to 1988. Beginning in 1989, CART took over the famed street race through 1991. In 1992, the race was moved to Belle Isle, where it was held through last year (with a 2009-2011 hiatus after the Great Recession).

The Penske Corp. is the promoter of this race, and they did a lot of good at Belle Isle, including saving the Scott Fountain, modernizing the Belle Isle Casino, and basically cleaning up the park for Detroit citizens to enjoy.

The race, however, had outgrown the venue. Roger Penske had big ideas to create an even bigger event and moving it back to downtown Detroit benefitted race sponsor Chevrolet. The footprint of the race course goes around General Motors world headquarters in the GM Renaissance Center – the centerpiece building of Detroit’s modernized skyline.

INDYCAR IN DETROIT: Entry list, schedule, TV info for this weekend

JOSEF’S FAMILY TIES: Newgarden wins Indy 500 with wisdom of father, wife

Motor City is about to roar with the sound of Chevrolet and Honda engines this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series is the featured race on the nine-turn, 1.7-mile temporary street course.

It’s perhaps the most unique street course on the IndyCar schedule because of the bumps on the streets and the only split pit lane in the series.

The pit lanes has stalls on opposing sides and four lanes across an unusual rectangular pit area (but still only one entry and exit).

Combine that, with the bumps and the NTT IndyCar Series drivers look forward to a wild ride in Motor City.

“It’s gnarly, bro,” Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward said before posting the fastest time in Friday’s first practice. “It will be very interesting because the closest thing that I can see it being like is Toronto-like surfaces with more of a Long Beach-esque layout.

“There’s less room for error than Long Beach. There’s no curbs. You’ve got walls. I think very unique to this place.

PRACTICE RESULTS: Speeds from the first session

“Then it’s a bit of Nashville built into it. The braking zones look really very bumpy. Certain pavements don’t look bumpy but with how the asphalt and concrete is laid out, there’s undulation with it. So, you can imagine the cars are going to be smashing on every single undulation because we’re going to go through those sections fairly fast, and obviously the cars are pretty low. I don’t know.

“It looks fun, man. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It’s going to be learning through every single session, not just for drivers and teams but for race control. For everyone.

“Everybody has to go into it knowing not every call is going to be smooth. It’s a tall task to ask from such a demanding racetrack. I think it’ll ask a lot from the race cars as well.”

The track is bumpy, but O’Ward indicated he would be surprised if it is bumper than Nashville. By comparison to Toronto, driving at slow speed is quite smooth, but fast speed is very bumpy.

“This is a mix of Nashville high-speed characteristics and Toronto slow speed in significant areas,” O’Ward said. “I think it’ll be a mix of a lot of street courses we go to, and the layout looks like more space than Nashville, which is really tight from Turn 4 to 8. It looks to be a bit more spacious as a whole track, but it’ll get tight in multiple areas.”

The concept of having four-wide pit stops is something that excites the 24-year-old driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“I think it’s innovation, bro,” O’Ward said. “If it works out, we’ll look like heroes.

“If it doesn’t, we tried.”

Because of the four lanes on pit road, there is a blend line the drivers will have to adhere to. Otherwise, it would be chaos leaving the pits compared to a normal two-lane pit road.

“If it wasn’t there, there’d be guys fighting for real estate where there’s one car that fits, and there’d be cars crashing in pit lane,” O’Ward said. “I get why they did that. It’s the same for everybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of room to play with. That’s the problem.

“But it looks freaking gnarly for sure. Oh my God, that’s going to be crazy.”

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing believes the best passing areas will be on the long straights because of the bumps in the turns. That is where much of the action will be in terms of gaining or losing a position in the race.

“It will also be really easy to defend in my opinion,” Palou said. “Being a 180-degree corner, you just have to go on the inside and that’s it. There’s going to be passes for sure but its’ going to be risky.

“Turn 1, if someone dives in, you end up in the wall. They’re not going to be able to pass you on the exit, so maybe with the straight being so long you can actually pass before you end up on the braking zone.”

Palou’s teammate, Marcus Ericsson, was at the Honda simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana, before coming to Detroit and said he was shocked by the amount of bumps on the simulator.

Race promoter Bud Denker, the President of Penske Corporation, and Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix President Michael Montri, sent the track crews onto the streets with grinders to smooth out the bumps on the race course several weeks ago.

“They’ve done a decent amount of work, and even doing the track walk, it looked a lot better than what we expected,” Ericsson said. “I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I hope not. That’ll be something to take into account.

“I think the track layout doesn’t look like the most fun. Maybe not the most challenging. But I love these types of tracks with rules everywhere. It’s a big challenge, and you have to build up to it. That’s the types of tracks that I love to drive. It’s a very much Marcus Ericsson type of track. I like it.”

Scott Dixon, who was second fastest in the opening session, has competed on many new street circuits throughout his legendary racing career. The six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing likes the track layout, even with the unusual pit lane.

“I don’t think that’s going to be something that catches on where every track becomes a double barrel,” Dixon said. “It’s new and interesting.

“As far as pit exit, I think Toronto exit is worse with how the wall sticks out. I think in both lanes, you’ve got enough lead time to make it and most guys will make a good decision.”

It wasn’t until shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday that the IndyCar drivers began the extended 90-minute practice session to try out the race course for the first time in real life.

As expected, there were several sketchy moments, but no major crashes during the first session despite 19 local yellow flags for incidents and two red flags.

Rookie Agustin Canapino had to cut his practice short after some damage to his No. 78 Dallara-Chevrolet, but he was among many who emerged mostly unscathed from scrapes with the wall.

“It was honestly less carnage than I expected,” said Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was third fastest in the practice after coming off his first career IndyCar victory in the most recent street race at Long Beach in April. “I think a lot of people went off in the runoffs, but no one actually hit the wall (too hard), which actually surprised me. Hats off to them for keeping it clean, including myself.

“It was quite a bit less grip than I think everyone expected. Maybe a little bit more bumpy down into Turn 3 than everyone expected. But overall they did a good job between the two manufacturers. I’m sure everyone had pretty much the same we were able to base everything off of. We felt pretty close to maximum right away.”

Most of the preparation for this event was done either on the General Motors Simulator in Huntersville, North Carolina, or the Honda Performance Development simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“Now, we have simulators that can scan the track, so we have done plenty of laps already,” Power told NBC Sports. “They have ground and resurfaced a lot of the track, so it should be smoother.

“But nothing beats real-world experience. It’s going to be a learning experience in the first session.”

As a Team Penske driver, Power and his teammates were consulted about the progress and layout of the Detroit street course. They were shown what was possible with the streets that were available.

“We gave some input back after we were on the similar what might be ground and things like that,” Power said.

Racing on the streets of Belle Isle was a fairly pleasant experience for the fans and corporate sponsor that compete in the race.

But the vibe at the new location gives this a “big event” feel.

“The atmosphere is a lot better,” Power said. “The location, the accessibility for the fans, the crowd that will be here, it’s much easier. I think it will be a much better event.

“It feels like a Long Beach, only in a much bigger city. That is what street course racing is all about.”

Because the track promoter is also the team owner, Power and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will have a very busy weekend on the track, and with sponsor and personal appearances.

“That’s what pays the bills and allows us to do this,” Power said.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500