Troy Dog
The SuperMotocross Playoffs are coming up very quickly! The first round will be September 7th at zMax Raceway at Charlotte Speedway, in you guessed it…Charlotte, North Carolina. This will be the second visit to zMax in the SMX Playoffs history.
The following week on September 14th, the second round will be held at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. A week later will be the Finals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It’s three consecutive weeks and we’re talking about Playoffs…are you kidding me?
You know who else is talking about playoffs? Well, Chase Sexton was in the Unadilla press conference. Sexton was asked about his bike setup and prep for the hybrid tracks by my long lost twin brother and Racer X’s own Mitch Kendra.
“Last year to be honest, I didn’t do too much prep,” Sexton said. “We’ll transition to some sort of Supercross, but man we’ve ridden so much this year and I have such a good feeling with the bike that you really don’t need anymore than a week or two to get ready.”
If you remember last year, a hot topic of discussion with the riders, was bike setup. If you know us here at Vurbmoto, you’ll know it’s our least favorite topic. However, when it comes to these hybrid tracks inside of speedways, it does get kind of interesting. Sexton went in pretty deep with his explanation.
“Last year I rode Supercross suspension at all three,” Sexton said. “The second one I should not have, it was a big mistake on my part, but I didn’t really know what to do. We didn’t have any data. So, this year I’m going to take a different approach. Obviously we’ll have to see how the tracks are.”
Sexton admitted that he hasn’t looked at track maps yet. He wasn’t even aware if they were out or not yet. They in fact are, check out the Charlotte track map.
“The first one last year you couldn’t really get away with motocross stuff,” Sexton said. “The second one was obviously really high speed, and then the last one was a Supercross track pretty much, so yeah we’ll see how it goes.”
As the season shifts from the Pro Motocross Championship to the SMX Playoffs, Sexton is feeling confident in himself and his bike setup. The Red Bull KTM is gelling with his riding style and the two parties have made great strides in their first year working together, especially in the outdoor season.
“Right now I’m really comfortable,” Sexton said. “We’ve learned a lot of stuff with the bike throughout outdoors and to be honest the handle is completely different from Supercross to outdoors. It doesn’t really feel like the same bike, so hopefully we can take some of that and put it on the SX spec for SMX next year.”
Chase Sexton can clinch his first Pro Motocross Championship of his career after the first moto at Ironman. He holds a 28-point lead over Team Honda HRC’s Hunter Lawrence.
Sexton also holds the number one seed heading into the SMX Playoffs. That will give him 25 points starting in Charlotte as he begins his quest to become the SMX Champion.
Main Image Courtesy of Octopi Media
