Kawasaki Riders Sweep Supercross in Foxborough; Lawrence Locks Up 250 East

Images via Ned Leone

Jason Anderson and Austin Forkner completed a Monster Energy Kawasaki sweep at Gillette Stadium, as the duo took the 450 and 250 East feature wins in the third-to-last Monster Energy Supercross rounds of the season on Saturday afternoon. In the process, Jett Lawrence locked up his first indoor title on the 250s, while Eli Tomac’s bid for a second crown will have to wait a week longer.

A perfect Saturday afternoon for the most part, only briefly dampened by a stray few drops of rain in the 450 feature, was the setting for the 15th round of the campaign. While Foxborough’s  course may have lacked a handful of the elements of some of this year’s other tracks, such as a crossover segment, that was of little consequence to the tens of thousands who showed up for the sport’s first visit to the state of Massachusetts in four years.

Lawrence entered the day basically just needing to make the final—an 18th place out of 22 was all it would take—to make the most of an injury-impacted season by clinching the 250 East championship. Originally, the plan was for him to take the West division for Honda and his brother Hunter to take the East, before a cracked rib in preseason training necessitated some recovery time. The Australian would duke it out with Forkner through the early stages of the year, before a collision between them in the final Triple Crown race in Arlington broke Forkner’s collarbone and put a premature end to the battle.

That left RJ Hampshire as Lawrence’s closest title competition, and Hampshire’s hopes of winning ended almost as early as they began when he got caught up in a massive wreck in the second 250 heat. As a result, he’d need to come through the last chance qualifier just to make the feature. Hampshire would recover to ride second to heat winner Pierce Brown for much of the main, but would make contact while going for the lead to go down and drop off of the podium.

Both Forkner and Lawrence would eventually catch and pass Brown, who had looked like the strongest rider for most of the day on his Gasgas. In the end, Forkner, who had suffered a crash of his own in the heats while going for second, exacted some revenge on Lawrence for Arlington by hanging on for the race win.

For a few minutes early in the main, it looked like both championships would be handed out in Foxboro. Tomac had cruised to the final after finishing second to Chase Sexton in his heat, just minutes after Marvin Musquin—whose contact with Tomac here four years earlier made so many headlines—outdueled Anderson for the first heat win. As Tomac would need only to finish ahead of Anderson to mathematically eliminate him, and both would have to finish way down the order for Justin Barcia or Malcolm Stewart to stay alive, the Colorado native could afford to race patiently over the more than 20-minute feature.

Anderson, on the other hand, knew aggression would be critical. Defending champion Cooper Webb would take the holeshot in front of Tomac and Anderson, and “El Hombre” was determined not to go down without a fight. He’d push Tomac out of position as the trio all came together just a few minutes in, causing Tomac to stall his bike and fall to sixth.

Not long after, Anderson would seize the lead and not look back, earning his fifth win of the year with Sexton and Musquin each making their way onto the podium as Webb faded to sixth. Tomac would elect to play it safe and eventually cross the line seventh, preserving a 43-point advantage over Anderson; despite giving up the chance to clinch, he only needs to finish 13th next week in Denver to celebrate a championship in his home state.

The 2022 Monster Energy Supercross season concludes with rounds next Saturday at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver and May 7 at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City. Once again, two titles are on the line next week in Denver, with Christian Craig’s 23-point lead on Hunter Lawrence in the 250 West division almost enough to lock it up before Tomac attempts to do the same in the 450 feature.