Dirt bike racing is known for its aggressive bar-to-bar action, and Justin Barcia appeared to execute one of the most egregious take-outs you’re likely to see all year at last weekend’s St. Louis Supercross.
The move was put on Jett Lawrence on the opening lap of the third and final race of the three-race Triple Crown format that was used by AMA Supercross in St. Louis last weekend.
The layout in St. Louis had around half of the track completed between the first corner and the finish jump, after which was a 90-degree right-hander before two flat straights connected by two near-180-degree switchbacks. It was in the second of these switchbacks that Barcia almost ended the night of Jett Lawrence, the 450SX rookie who went into the St. Louis round with a 16-point championship lead.
Lawrence rode around off the pace for the remainder of the race after the crash, which happened on the first lap. Barcia - who is known for his aggressive riding, standing out almost completely even among those he shares the Supercross gate with - apologised to Lawrence afterwards. The #51 has not, historically, been in the habit of admitting “my bad” when sawing a guy’s front wheel off (take a look at Salt Lake City 2022), and so his apparent display of remorse post-race indicates this incident was not entirely on purpose.
Barcia might have been trying to pass Lawrence aggressively, and not anticipated that the #18 would cut quite as tight a line on the corner exit as he, in fact, did. A larger factor, though, might be the rider behind Barcia, Vince Friese, who is cut from the same aggro-riding cloth as the #51 and was positioned to the inside of Barcia as they approached the corner. Whether it was in Barcia’s mind that he had to rush to the exit of the corner to stop Friese from charging through him as he himself charged through Lawrence is uncertain, but it is doubtless that Barcia’s apparent remorse for the incident is uncharacteristic of the New Yorker.
Lawrence’s race three incident with Barcia came after he - along with Yamaha rider Cooper Webb and KTM riders Chase Sexton and Aaron Plessinger - was docked two positions for jumping on a red cross flag (Kawasaki's Jason Anderson was also penalised, docked four positions for jumping on the same red cross flag twice).
Eli Tomac, who had won the first race of the night, was more or less the only front-running rider to not jump on the red cross flag, which in AMA Supercross means riders cannot jump through the section in which it’s displayed, and inherited the race two win from Lawrence when he was penalised. A win in race three therefore confirmed Tomac as the St. Louis Supercross winner: his first victory of 2024, and the third occurrence of a rider winning all three races of a 450SX Triple Crown format after Ken Roczen at St. Louis in 2020 and Jett Lawrence at Indianapolis earlier this year.
The aforementioned Webb finished second overall and benefitted from Lawrence’s race three incident and resultant eighth-place overall finish to cut his championship points deficit from 16 to eight with five rounds to go. Hunter Lawrence, teammate to and brother of Jett, took his first career 450SX podium in third place.
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Lead image credit: SuperMotocross World Championship/SMX Videopass.
