Hunter Lawrence had a great jump coming out of the gate, but it was Jorge Prado who ended up with the lead. Ken Roczen was back in fifth, and Lawrence immediately went to work on Prado. After about a lap Lawrence went up the inside of Prado and grabbed the lead. Eli Tomac was right there behind them, but he stalled his motorcycle briefly in the sand and dropped back a bit.
As the race evolved a Cooper Webb and Roczen got bunched up behind Prado. Roczen was not messing around, and he put a brilliant, and aggressive, move on Webb in the sand to take over fourth. Roczen was then all over the track trying to find a way around Prado, and he finally lined him up on the inside in a right hander, made the move, and took off after Lawrence, who had about five seconds on Roczen.
Back in third Prado and Webb were going at it, with Webb getting by, but Prado went back by on the inside in the sand. Webb wasn’t able to fire back and soon was under pressure from Tomac, who sliced by on the inside and immediately closed on Prado. Tomac was all over him but Prado didn’t make it easy on his teammate, and then Prado even stretched it back out in the whoops! Tomac took a few laps to regroup, but at roughly the halfway point he put together another charge. After a few unsuccessful pass attempts Tomac finally cut down in a lefthander, went by Prado, then shut him down to take ownership of third place for good.
Up front Lawrence was riding flawlessly and had built his gap to over eight seconds on Roczen, who was comfortable in second, about five seconds in front of Tomac. As the race wound down the battle to watch was between Webb and Justin Cooper for fifth. Cooper was applying an absurd about of pressure on Webb, but Webb didn’t get rattled and stubbornly refused to give up the spot. Time and time again Cooper looked like he had the pass made, only to have Webb come screaming up the inside of him and shut him down in the next corner. As the two fought they closed on Prado, and with three minutes left Webb was breathing down Prado’s neck. He still had Cooper all over him though, and Dylan Ferrandis was now throwing a wheel in on Cooper! As the two exited the whoops they both tried to go inside coming into the sand and collided, and both went down. That left Webb free to attack Prado, which he did, but Webb was a little too aggressive in a lefthand 180-degree turn and went down!
The checkered flag came out shortly after, with Lawrence taking a dominant win, with Roczen, Tomac, Malcolm Stewart, and Chase Sexton filling the top five. Now, coming into the final race of the season next weekend in Salt Lake City, Roczen leads Lawrence by just a single point. Winner take all at the finale!
