Colorado’s Eli Tomac was unbeatable at Spring Creek, round eight of the United States Motocross nationals at the weekend, scoring a 1-1 sweep and earning the Honda rider the first overall victory of his career in the 450 class.

Tomac grabbed the holeshot not once – but twice – in moto two. Shortly after Tomac raced out of the first turn with the lead, the race was red flagged due to a malfunction with the starting gate. The riders were lined back up, the gates were eventually dropped a second time, and Tomac once again got to the line first. He was quickly passed by Justin Brayton, but Tomac recaptured the lead by the end of the first lap and went on the lead every lap of the race.

This is just Tomac’s fourth race in the 450 class, and while a broken collarbone earlier in the year has kept him out of the title mix, he’ll be trying to play the role of spoiler throughout the final four rounds.

KTM’s Ryan Dungey ran in second throughout the entire race and, while he stayed close to Tomac for awhile, was not able to run down the Honda rider – eventually making a mistake that cost him several seconds. Dungey’s 3-2 moto results earned him second overall for the day in front of his hometown fans.

While Ken Roczen will still leave Millville with the championship leader’s red plate, he allowed Dungey to pick up two points on him in the title race after being passed by Trey Canard for third late in the moto. We’ve now run 16 motos this season, and this is the first time that Roczen has failed to finish a moto inside the top three.

The two point swing in points is notable because it cuts Roczen’s lead from 26 to 24 – meaning that Dungey can mathematically take over the points lead with just one moto.

James Stewart’s string of disappointing races continued. After the race was red flagged, he would not make it back to the line for the restart and was credited with a DNS. Stewart is now in danger of losing hold of fourth place in the point standings, as Brett Metcalfe has pulled within four points of him.

Metcalfe was one of the riders in this moto battling for a top-five position. Metcalfe, Josh Grant, Andrew Short and Weston Peick swapped spots in the 5-8 range in this moto and are all within 35 points of each other in the championship standings as they compete for a top-five spot there too.

Honda Muscle Milk’s recently-recruited Fredrik Noren finished ninth overall with 11-10 moto results. The second moto also featured strong rides from Christian Craig (who recently emerged from retirement to ride for Honda and finished ninth) and Mitchell Oldenburg, who took 12th.

250cc CLASS

Meanwhile in the 250cc class, Cooper Webb bounced back from a disappointing result in the first moto to take the moto two win at Spring Creek, but Blake Baggett saw his championship hopes take a hit after a crash and subsequent bike problems resulted in a DNF.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Martin did enough to collect the overall victory and will leave his home track with a much bigger leads in points.

For the second time on Saturday, the field found themselves chasing French former world champion Christophe Pourcel after the first turn. Alex Martin – who, like Jeremy, grew up riding Spring Creek – was behind Pourcel, and Baggett was in third after a great start.

When Baggett gets a good start, he becomes hard to beat, and sure enough, it was only a matter of time until he got around both Martin and Pourcel to move into the lead. Lap four would end up being the only lap led by Baggett in the moto though, as a crash cost him the lead and knocked him out of the top ten.

Baggett was poised to make a charge similar to the one he made in the opening moto, but on Lap 10 he was forced to pull of the track, and his day would come to an end. It was a frustrating development for the Kawasaki rider, who lost a total of 29 points to Martin – more than doubling the gap he faced entering this round.

After Baggett’s crash, Justin Bogle inherited the lead by virtue of his pass on Pourcel. Webb was hot on Bogle’s fender though, with Martin not far behind.

Webb had attempted to challenge Bogle for a position in the first moto but ran into the back of Bogle’s bike and went down, costing him many positions.

At one point in moto two, Bogle and Webb made contact once again while battling for the lead, but both riders stayed upright. Around the midway point of the moto, Webb passed Bogle on the inside to take away the lead, and Martin followed his team-mate into second place shortly after.

Bogle later encountered trouble and would not finish the race.

Up front, Webb held off his team-mate to take the victory.

“To steal a moto win at Jeremy’s backyard is awesome,” Webb said after the race.

Still, Martin managed to gain 10 points on Webb today, extending his championship lead to 43 points.

French rider Marvin Musquin was one of the benefactors of other riders’ misfortunes in the second moto, earning fourth-place behind Jason Anderson. Musquin’s 2-4 moto scores place him second overall for the second time in three weeks.

© Photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

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Spring Creek 450 Class Overall Results

1. Eli Tomac (1-1)

2. Ryan Dungey (3-2)

3. Ken Roczen (2-4)

4. Trey Canard (4-3)

5. Josh Grant (5-5)

6. Brett Metcalfe (6-6)

7. Andrew Short (9-7)

8. Weston Peick (8-8)

9. Fredrik Noren (11-10)

10. Matt Goerke (12-11)

Spring Creek 250 Class Overall Results

1. Jeremy Martin (1-2)

2. Marvin Musquin (2-4)

3. Cooper Webb (9-1)

4. Chrisophe Pourcel (3-6)

5. Dean Wilson (5-5)

6. Jason Anderson (11-3)

7. Joey Savatgy (8-9)

8. Alex Martin (12-7)

9. Cole Seely (7-13)

10. Jessy Nelson (14-8)