When the gate dropped Aaron Plessinger made a serious bid for the holeshot, but Jett Lawrence would squeeze him out and take over the lead, followed by his brother, Hunter. It looked like Jett might make a break for it but as he exited the sand whoops he pushed in the ensuing righthander and went down. The pack was right behind him too and he dropped back to about 15th. That put Hunter in the lead, with Plessinger, Jorge Prado, Eli Tomac, and Chase Sexton rounding out the top five.
Prado had Tomac all over him and was unable to hold him off, which put Tomac in third. Prado then found himself under fire from Sexton. A pass seemed inevitable but Prado did a good job fending off Sexton before Sexton was able to rail an outside line and zip around Prado. Moments later, RJ Hampshire blew by Prado, dropping Prado to sixth. Shortly after that Prado dropped to seventh when Jett Lawrence went by him in the sand whoops.
Further up in the pack Tomac had closed on Plessinger and was applying all kinds of pressure. Tomac was able to make a move by railing the outside in a righthander, and Plessinger helped him out by making a mistake as he exited the turn. A few spots back Lawrence was riding at an astounding rate and making moves fast. He went around both Sexton and Plessinger at the same time and went after Tomac, catching him extremely quickly. Lawrence then won the drag race up Mt. Martin, moved into second, and went after Hunter, who was about nine seconds clear in the lead. Tomac, meanwhile, seemed like he backed it down and Sexton rode right by in the sand rollers. A few laps later Tomac found himself under attack from Hampshire, who was also able to zap Tomac in the sand rollers.
Up front Hunter Lawrence was turning extremely fast laps, and it’s a good thing for him he was because Jett made a bid to catch up. At one point Jett got the lead down to six seconds, but Hunter was riding so well it would have taken a tremendous effort from Jett to continue to close the gap. At a certain point it looked like Jett simply accepted second place and settled in.
Plessinger would eventually drop out of this moto, likely related to the illness that kept him out of the second moto last week at RedBud. Tony Cairoli went down right off the start in this moto and finished 23rd. Prado’s woes continued the whole race. He lost more spots to Malcolm Stewart, Justin Barcia, Coty Schock, Valentin Guillod, and Lorenzo Locurcio. He finished 12th.