Image: Octopi Media.

Entering the season’s sixth round undefeated across 10 motos, Team Honda HRC’s Jett Lawrence extended his control over the 450MX class in 2023 to Southwick as the fastest qualifier by a significant margin in Massachusetts, while local favorite Jimmy DeCotis topped 250MX in his first Pro Motocross Championship appearance since August 2018.

Lawrence’s Honda stablemate Chase Sexton turned a 2:06.63s lap time on his best revolution of the New England track, but that was only good enough to come within 2.208s of Lawrence, who lapped at 2:05.422s in the first 450MX outing of the morning.

Usual suspects Dylan Ferrandis (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing), Adam Cianciarulo (Monster Energy Kawasaki), and Ty Masterpool landed in the third, fourth, and fifth positions on the combined qualifying results on the strength of their best first-session times.

Local privateers Chris Canning and Anton Gole took lap times in the mid-2:09s range to sixth and seventh, beating Jason Anderson (Monster Energy Kawasaki), Aaron Plessinger (Red Bull KTM), and Fredrik Noren (Twisted Tea HEP Suzuki) in the top 10.

Image: Octopi Media.

In the quarter-liter class, DeCotis used favorable track conditions in the first 250MX B-group session of the day to rocket to the top of the combined timesheet leading into the motos.

At 2:06.592s, DeCotis’ best revolution of the sandy circuit put him 0.218s clear of Justin Cooper (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing), who turned in the fastest lap among the A contingent in their first laps of the morning.

Hunter Lawrence (Team Honda HRC) landed third based on his first-session lap, 1.457s off Cooper’s pace.

Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s RJ Hampshire and Jalek Swoll were fourth and fifth overall, though Hamsphire was signficantly faster than any other rider in the second session with the track in a more race-like state.

Tom Vialle’s first laps at Southwick for Red Bull KTM ended with him sixth on the combined qualifying results, followed by his teammate Max Vohland as well as Seth Hammaker (Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki), Haiden Deegan (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing), and Levi Kitchen (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing) in the top 10.

First motos for the 250MX and 450MX divisions will kick off at 1:10pm and 2:10pm, respectively, with both Peacock and NBC offering live coverage beginning at 1pm.

Detailed results