Qualifying is done in Tampa and already the East Coast has claimed its first victim in the 250SX category, with Brian Moreau crashing out of the first free practice session, forcing him to withdraw from the meeting completely and leaving Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM team without representation for this first round of the 250SX East series – certainly a contrast to the consistency of Brandon Hartranft on the West.
In the 450SX class there was also a big crash for Alex Ray who went down heavily in the second qualifying session bringing out the red flag.
The track itself seems interesting. The sand both in the straight(away) and in the turn, looks much softer and looser than what we saw, for example, in San Diego one week ago with the split-lane turn after the second set of whoops. That softness and looseness is providing issues, especially for the 250 riders, with their momentum being sapped by the surface, and entering the turn on the tighter line makes things complicated and maintaining momentum difficult.
Line choice-wise, there doesn’t appear to be much outside of the sand straight, which is a split-lane section, with both lanes leading to a different line for the sand turn which follows.
After the sand section is a right-handed berm, which is perhaps the most important turn on the track. Get the turn right and you can hit 3-3-3 on the next straight, mess the turn up and you’re forced into 2-2-2-3, the difference between the two timewise being stark.
A third interesting talking point on the track is the whoops section before the finish, with some riders jumping even in qualifying. They’re quite a big set, and with such a hard base you might assume the way they break down will be different to San Diego one week ago, where the two whoops sections proved so critical in both 250SX and 450SX mains. However, looking at how they broke down in the day, figuring out how to jump them could once again prove vital to success tonight.
That hard base is also bringing a low-grip scenario, which is to be expected. Being patient with the power could be critical come the night show.
As for the standings, Jeremy Martin came back with a bang in the 250 class, hitting the top of the times, whilst in the premier class it was once again Adam Cianciarulo who topped the timesheets for the seventh time out of seven in 2020, just over a tenth ahead of Monster Energy Kawasaki teammate, Eli Tomac. The two KX450 riders were the only ones to get inside 48 seconds, Ken Roczen qualifying third, two tenths behind Tomac, and 0.003 seconds ahead of last week’s winner Cooper Webb, whilst Jason Anderson completed the top five. Malcolm Stewart also showed well in sixth place, ahead of Blake Baggett. On his return to Supercross racing, Broc Tickle was fifteenth in qualifying for JGR Suzuki.
Super Crossed Up 