Team Honda HRC at Florida | Photo credits: Honda Racing
The seventh round of the 2020 AMA Pro Motocross Championship took place in Jacksonville, Florida, where Team Honda HRC’s Chase Sexton and Christian Craig faced a challenging race day due to high temperatures and sandy, rough track conditions.
Sexton showed great speed, qualifying fastest in both practice sessions and finishing fourth overall, via a 4-5 moto tally. Sexton enjoyed solid starts and battled in the top three in both motos, but a late-race mistake set him back to fourth in the first outing. He posted a consistent fifth-place finish in moto two, earning that position overall.
Craig enjoyed one of his best qualifying performances thus far, notching the fifth-best time. Thwarted by a bad start in the first outing, Craig worked his way up to 10th, and that’s where he stayed for the remainder of the race. The Californian improved on his start in the second moto but wasn’t able to ride to his potential, and the heat eventually contributed to his posting 11th overall, via 10-10 finishes.
“Today I qualified first in both practices, which was good. My speed has been really good. In the first moto I passed for the lead for about five seconds and then I got passed back, but overall, I feel like I’ve been riding really well. I got fifth overall today, which isn’t what we want, but I think we’re getting closer to the win that we want. I’m looking forward to the last two rounds.”
“WW started off pretty good. Qualifying was one of my best—I qualified fifth. I went into the motos pretty confident. But I got off to a bad start in the first moto. I had to make my way through the pack pretty quickly and I got up to ninth or 10th. I was stuck there for a while, and unfortunately, the heat got to me about halfway through.”
“It was tough trying to hang on, not being used to the humidity at all, and I pretty much just rode it out in 10th. I had a better start in the second moto and rode up with those guys a little bit longer. I had some good battles. Then the heat just took over again. I pretty much hung on for dear life and I ended up getting 10-10 for 11th. I was on a pretty good streak with some good motos, running upfront. So I’m not happy with today. I have two more rounds to get into that top-five.”