Image: Octopi Media

Monster Energy Kawasaki rookie Adam Cianciarulo broke through for his first 450MX round win of his career at round five of the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, at RedBud today.

Current championship points’ leader Zach Osborne (Rockstar Husqvarna Factory Racing) enjoyed a day near the front of the field in both races to extend his championship lead, while Rocky Mountain ATV MC KTM racer Blake Baggett took the field by storm to win the second moto.

In the opening 450 race, an ecstatic Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Adam Cianciarulo held off a hard charge from his team-mate and three-time champion Eli Tomac to claim his first-ever 450cc moto win in the opening premier class race.

Cianciarulo led from wire to wire and managed a relatively comfortable 2-3 second lead for most of the race before Tomac piled on late pressure.

Cianciarulo remained composed to take a hard-fought win, while Red Bull KTM’s Marvin Musquin, who rebounded well from a hard pass from Justin Barcia (Monster Energy Yamaha) earlier in the race, rounded out the podium.

Osborne spent most of his race in second position, before losing spots to a hard-charging Tomac and Musquin late in the moto.

Barcia finished fifth, while Baggett placed sixth, ahead of Joey Savatgy (JGRMX Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing), Broc Tickle (Monster Energy Yamaha), Chase Sexton (Team Honda HRC), and Christian Craig (Team Honda HRC).

In the second moto, Cianciarulo again enjoyed a perfect jump out of the blocks and took off at the front of the pack, while behind him, Tomac, Barcia and Sexton were caught in a second-turn pile-up that left Tomac restarting from dead last.

Seperate errors in the same corner from Marvin Musquin and Joey Savagty saw Baggett jump from fifth to third behind Cianciarulo and Osborne and he took off after the frontrunners.

While enjoying a four-second lead at the midway point, Cianciaculo ran into the back lapped rider at the bottom of an off-camber turn and went down, allowing Osborne and Baggett both past.

Late in the race Baggett closed in on Osborne and made a clever pass for the lead, then checked out, leading by 13 seconds by the time he got to the checkered flag.

Behind him, Osborne took a content second, Cianciarulo third, Musquin fourth and Tickle fifth. Christian Craig, Tomac, Savatgy, Sexton, and Barca finished out the top 10 positions.

Detailed results