Image: Octopi Media.

Chase Sexton broke down the crash that saw him hit the ground hard in the opening lap of the first moto at Unadilla during the eighth round of the Pro Motocross season.

After two-weekends off, the 2021 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross championship returned to the track and Chase Sexton launched out of the gate for what looked like would be a great start to his moto.

As fate would have it, the Team Honda HRC rider would end up having an odd crash on the exit of the opening sweeper, narrowly escaping the chasing pack of 450 riders, later detailing the crash following the race.

“I got a good start, I think I was like third or fourth,” Sexton explained. “I was kind of trying to block Cooper [Webb], Cooper was trying to go around the outside, so I was trying to get on the gas obviously and not lose a position.

“Ended up just losing the rear end and it felt like forever, but I probably did like three or four swaps. Honestly that kind of slowed me down a little bit so it probably helped me, but I hit the deck pretty hard.

“I couldn’t catch my breath, I wasn’t really hurt, I thought I broke one of my ribs at the beginning, but it was just super sore. So I caught my breath and got on my bike probably 40 seconds behind the last place guy and just tried to salvage something out of it. It wasn’t ideal but it’s how it goes sometimes.”

Sexton would eventually work his way up to 11th in the moto and came out swinging for the second gate drop, grabbing the holeshot and running away with teammate Ken Roczen. While Roczen eventually took the win, Sexton maintained second place and salvaged fifth overall on the day.

“I came out in the second moto and got the holeshot, he continued. “I tried to run away as fast as I could, but Ken [Roczen] obviously is really good at that too, and he’s faster. I felt like I rode pretty good.

“Definitely got roosted a lot today, so I’m going to be a little bit sore from that and the crash, but I’m looking forward to Budds Creek and will try and get some wins under my belt before the season’s over.”

Sexton’s performance pushed him to fourth in the overall standings, now trailing Eli Tomac (Monster Energy Kawasaki) in third by just 13 points as the series heads to Budds Creek for round nine on 21 August.