Chase Sexton made a big statement in Washougal last weekend and while it is a track he had won on in three occasions, victory over Jett Lawrence, on any track is always a little special and the AMA supercross champion and current AMA motocross champion knows that.

Chase Sexton: Friday I was sitting over there thinking that I had a lot riding on tomorrow, because there are two trucks here for one guy. Like if I didn’t perform, we’re probably going to lose a lot of money. I honestly told them this week, let’s just bring the van. I have a motorhome for myself, we could just put an easy-up on the side and just pit out of there, but they wanted to bring both trucks, and yeah, everyone was here for me today. It was actually good, because Vialles mechanic Pedro was helping me today with a lot of video and stuff. So just to be able to see what’s going on with the bike and how I’m riding, stuff like that – there was just a lot of extra help. It worked for me today, so it was nice to kind of go out there and at least perform and get a win. If I would’ve been off the podium, I feel like I would’ve gone home with my tail between my legs. It was nice, but I also miss my teammates.

I enjoy the track, it’s unique. I would say I’m ahead of schedule, last week I got beat by 48 seconds in the second moto, so I feel like that was a pretty big bridge to gap. Coming in here, I made a lot of bike changes this week to the rear end, and they were quite a bit better. I had a really good day on Wednesday, and I felt like I was getting back to being close to where I can compete for at least a race win. I feel like I’m a little ahead of schedule, my whole goal was to get myself to where I feel like I’m ready to go after SMX, that’s kind of why I came back when I did. Like I said, I feel like I’m ahead of schedule, but at any given time, there are so many good guys that, when you feel like you’re on, you have to make it work. I feel like that was today.

I don’t know, the first moto was nice, just to get a moto win. I knew the job was far from done. Winning the overall felt better, obviously. It would have been unfortunate to come out without the win after winning the first moto. It’s been a while since I’ve won a race, it’s been since Salt Lake City, so it was nice to get that monkey off my back, and we’ll go into this break and try to get better. I’ve still got a few things I think I can be better with, and a little more speed. My speed was better today, I was able to qualify better, but I think there’s a little more room to get better still. I’m just happy to click off a win and go into the break with some confidence.

We had a really good pace going in the second race, and obviously Eli was right there, so I didn’t really have any room to back off. Jett started upping the pace and I was trying to go with him, we started to get a little gap, but on this track – especially up against someone as good as Jett – it’s really hard to even think about a place to make a pass. So, I just cruised it back to bring it home, it’d be stupid [to crash going for the race win]. I already did that in Dallas, trying to go for a win when I didn’t need to, and I made myself look like an idiot. So today I didn’t want to do that.