Red Bull KTM’s Chase Sexton took one step closer to a maiden 450MX crown with his fourth win in a row, as Levi Kitchen returned to the top step of the 250MX podium at Unadilla’s ninth round of Pro Motocross 2024. Both riders were available to the media following the final motos for this Debrief feature.

450MX

Image: Octopi Media.

Once in a while we have a moto out there where someone is just flawless from start to finish. That was your second moto today, really showing us why you’ve got that red plate. What was clicking for you out there? At one point a sixteen-second lead… It stayed steady at 13 seconds in there and then you really settled into it, brought it home.

To be honest, I was just really excited to get a holeshot. I hadn’t pulled a holeshot all summer. Today we made some adjustments to the bike for the start and it really paid off. My first moto was good, second Moto was even better, and I just wanted to sprint when the track was really good and just try and capitalize on getting a good start and really show my sprint speed. I’ve been working on it a lot the last three weeks with Tom [Vialle] and yeah, I kind of wanted to show that and just try and get a gap. I felt really good at the beginning and then with a track like this, you have to be really on your toes the whole moto and not slack off too much, but not override it because it can bite you obviously. We saw that a lot today. So yeah, it was a fine line of how much you could push, but I was just trying to stay steady and have some fun. I had a really good moto. I fell solid the whole time. Made some bike changes from moto one to moto two, and I told my mechanic following the sight lap, ‘I feel good with this moto, I’m ready to go’. So had fun, it was good, and battled with Hunter [Lawrence] – overall, a good day.

It was kind of the tale of two motos for you. The first moto, you showed a lot of patient aggression, the second one you dominated. Is this the kind of well-balanced weekend that you need heading into the last two races?

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I’m just trying to get better. Even though the season’s been going well, you can never get too comfortable and for me, I really strive to get better every week and every race. So we took some time off in the break, but overall I really worked on my speed in trying to get a little bit more snappy and aggressive and first moto, yeah, it was good. Hunter and I went back and forth a few times. He obviously got the better hand of me in the first one and I knew I had to be better. I mean, I rode pretty well, but not as fluid as I wanted to be. And second moto, I really tried to just ride more like myself and be more free on the bike and that seems to be kind of the tale for me this year. The second moto, I feel not way better, but just more broken in almost… I feel more free and have more fun. So yeah, after first moto, I just tried to go back and I was really bad on the wall up the hill and I just tried to fix that for the second moto and see what I could do.

Then after the first moto, you said something – even though you were patient when you were attacking, you had a few sketchy moments – and you said you needed to clear your head. Obviously you did, but what happened between the two motos to help you do that?

Just try and get a clear mind and ride behind Hunter. It is really hard on this track when you’re behind somebody pick where you’re at for line choices. The ruts are so skinny and very hard, so if you get off balanced, you obviously make mistakes so when someone’s in front of you, it’s hard to really charge and make clear choices. So for me, I made a few mistakes first moto, I think a lot of people made a lot of mistakes today with how the track was. To me it was really fast and kind of a little bit sketchy, so I tried to just clear that out of my head. For the second moto, the plan was to go out there and attack and try and bring it home.

250MX

Image: Octopi Media.

After your home race at Washougal and the break, was that a goal to come out here at Unadilla and really push yourself to have the kind of results that you had today?

Kind of, but almost the opposite. After Washougal, I took it more as I needed a break, and yeah, I was pretty disappointed obviously, in how it went there, so I actually took a pretty good amount of time off the bike completely and I just needed to reset. I just pretty much fished for two weeks and golf. Yeah, I actually didn’t really ride much at all, but that recharged my batteries and made me excited to go racing again, and that’s what it took.

Let’s talk about the end of that first moto. Behind [Haiden] Deegan, it looked like you were going for it, you took a couple of shots and then, you settled into it. Was the thought, ‘Hey, I’m going to make sure I come out of this with a 2-1,’ was that the mindset in that moment?

Yeah, sort of. I want to win every time and I just made a mistake at the bottom of Screw U, and he passed me and tried to make a couple swings at him, but couldn’t get him. Once we got white flag, yeah, it went into like, “alright, next moto, we’ll see who gets it.’

The last four races have been a rollercoaster for you. The way you rode today though, showing patience when you needed to, showing dominance when you needed to, is that going to help us for you in these last two races to get maximum points?

Yeah, for sure. At this point, the points to me, it’s whatever, Haiden’s got a big gap and during the break, I just kept telling myself, I want to just win these last three and just try to solidify that I have the speed. I just had a bit of a tough year, but either way, yeah, just from here on out I just want to try to replicate it like I did today and that’s the goal.

If you do even podium in the next three races or the next two races, that gives you the momentum you need going into SuperMotocross at such a great Supercross season. Is that the primary goal?

Yeah, SuperMotocross would be great to win too, and it helped my bank account a lot, so that would be nice.

You do really well in the technical, maybe rough, rutty tracks, but you almost lack a little bit in the high-speed sections. I feel like today, it was a mixture of both where there were some high-speed sections with some long ruts. I guess, how can you take this momentum and carry it into those tracks that you’re not as great at, maybe comfortably pushing the higher speeds?

Yeah, I don’t know. I definitely prefer a track like this over a Hangtown or something like that. Yeah, I don’t know, maybe just more experience is going to… One of these days, I’m going to figure it out, but it was the same way in Supercross, the more hard-packed tracks I did okay, but then, the rutty ones, I did really well. I don’t know, I just like the ruts and I think it takes a lot of balance and I’m sure everybody can agree with that. I don’t know, you have to be a lot more patient. I would say high speed tracks, the guys who are able to just hold it wide open are pretty good. Unfortunately, I lack in that department sometimes, so I don’t know. Hopefully, I get better at it, but definitely prefer this stuff.