It was a long-awaited Lucas Oil Pro Motocross overall victory for Jason Anderson at Hangtown in 450MX, the Monster Energy Kawasaki rider notching a 1-3 scorecard to secure the breakthrough result. He was available to the media after the races for this Debrief feature. 

450MX

Image: Octopi Media.

You come off the track and we saw you look over at the track worker and he gave you the nod. I heard you say a moment ago you thought you were on the podium, and you didn’t realise you had won the overall.   

Yeah, with that last lap I got up to third and I was like, 1-3, for some reason I didn’t even think that I got the win. Then I crossed the mechanics’ area, and my mechanic was like, ‘you did it’. I was like ‘did it’? So I asked the flagger when I pulled off and he told me, I was stoked! For me it’s taken 12 years to get a win like this, and it’s been a lot of hard work and it feels good, it feels really good.

We talked about the track with Eli [Tomac] a moment ago. You are another one of those riders, as well as Chase [Sexton] because he’s very technical, but you hammer things, there’s no doubt about that, you’ll take a bad line to make a pass or if its open. Was that necessary today?  It looked like several times the only line available was the line you used, going through some lappers and it really played into your hand today. 

Yeah, just in general, when you’re out front, you’re able to be a little bit smarter with your lines and stuff like that. So the first moto, Chase was pulling away from me a little bit there. I tried to figure out some his lines and then tried to hammer, hammer them, it was good. That second moto, I started a little further back and going through those guys, passing, passing those guys are good! I was passing [Tony] Cairoli, [Ryan] Dungey, Kenny [Roczen], the list is pretty gnarly. That’s some work, so once I got to third, I was like, ‘man, trying to catch these two [Tomac and Sexton] is a little bit tough for me’. But I felt today I was able to hammer the whole moto, and it was an improvement over last weekend.

Was the pace a little quicker today than you thought it would be?

What’s crazy right now is the pace is pretty high, and especially when you’re in that top three, I mean, we’re battling all the way to the end. It’s taking everything out of you, and you’re using your brain the whole time and that mental capacity is tough to have for 70 minutes of racing. You’re trying to latch on to lines, figure stuff out, you’re out there problem-solving. It’s tough, I think we’re getting better at figuring it out, and I think our bike is good. So, yeah, it’s fun.

It looks like your comfort level from the second half of the supercross season through the opening of outdoors has really grown with the bike. It looks like you’ve really got it dialled and starting to gel right now. 

It’s just little things, for us it’s that one percent here and there, as far as changes goes it’s not like we’re not making crazy changes, but we’re making changes. They are minimal, but they add comfort. For us it’s all about knowing what your bike is going to do and being comfortable on that thing. Knowing how it’s going to react to the bumps and how it’s going to kick and stuff like that. For me, I feel very comfortable on my bike and just going to try and keep moving forward and progressing with that, and myself.

When you talk about the level of these riders, Eli Tomac, Chase Sexton, Ryan Dungey, Antonio Cairoli, Barcia, one of the toughest fields we’ve seen in many years. When you get a bad start, it’s not easy to make those passes, but the motivation was that first overall to push and make those passes when necessary.

For me my whole goal is to be relentless and put my effort out there the whole time and wherever that puts me, it puts me. That first moto, I put the effort out there and was able to get up to the lead and the second moto, everything I had was third place. I think with a start I could just keep fighting, I’m going to try to do that all year and see where we end up.

We saw a big swap from the booth, but was there anything in your mind that was a close call today?

Where that jump is that used to be called the Fly 150, the first moto I hit it way too fast and was thinking it was still an actual jump, and I just jumped off the track and that’s honestly where I lost a lot of time to Chase. It was honestly me just forgetting it was smaller this year than what it usually is.

Three-tenths of a second was the gap at the finish line of the first moto. Were you waiting for him[Sexton] to settle in, or were you expecting Chase to come back at you with two laps to go?

I even think that when I was behind him, he got caught up with lappers a little bit and then for me, coming into those last couple of laps it’s really tough, you get into that top 15 and they’re battling. It’s hard for them to want to give up too much, because some of those guys are in a battle. You get caught up in that stuff a little bit and try and be smart, but sometimes it kind of holds you up and that really can change the race. That’s how our racing works and it’s just another variable we have to deal with. As far as that first moto goes, towards the end I was still pushing trying to keep that gap, it’s just the way it works.

It’s hard to believe this is your first 450MX overall win. How are you going to celebrate?

Right now it’s a little too early in the season to celebrate the way I want to. If I’m being honest I’m probably just going to grab some dinner and stuff like that. It’s been a long time, and I’m really excited I don’t have to hear about not having an outdoor win anymore. That’s pretty nice, I’m stoked, I’m really happy where we’re at with my riding and everything like that. It just gives me more motivation. Right now, I’m going to just celebrate and just be excited and proud of myself but other than that I’m just going to try and get ready and keep this ball rolling.