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00:00Injury that he had a year ago and how he is able to come back for them is absolutely impressive.
00:06He leads the way with a win and a podium and he leads by just a narrow margin over Daytona
00:11winner Seth Hamaka, world champion Joe Shimoda.
00:14And Jason Thomas, what about Cole Davies? Is the pressure rising on the young Yamaha star?
00:19I think it might be because coming into 2026, a lot of people have him pinned as not only a
00:24contender but a championship favorite.
00:26Well, through two rounds, he's gone 5-2, but let's go to a year ago and how well he rode
00:31here.
00:32He showed things that a rookie's never done. The way he can blitz the whoops simply is abnormal for a
00:37rookie.
00:37So I think when you look at him, look at his facial expression throughout 2026, not only has the expectation
00:43risen,
00:43I think he's carrying that week to week and he's got to get a little bit less serious and find
00:48a win.
00:49Good stuff, JT. There is going to be a whole lot go down here tonight that may prove to be
00:55pivotal.
00:56In the whole complexion of this championship, whether it be 450 or 250 East Division.
01:03Triple crown night and you, I know how much you love these.
01:07Oh, I do. You know why? Because this goes towards your final score right here.
01:11This is not a qualification race. The action is now.
01:14The first of three races, 250 East. The triple crown is underway here in Indy.
01:21Dexton Bennett gets away to a really good start.
01:24Binnick on that Husky.
01:26Here comes Joe Shimoda on the Honda. Second place at the moment.
01:30Man, I'll tell you what. Joe Shimoda has been getting some great starts here in these first two rounds of
01:37this championship.
01:38But Binnick, he was fast today. Again, three weeks in a row.
01:43And this is what we wanted to see. JT talked about it at the top of the show.
01:47That number 37 right there. He is in the hot seat for me.
01:50A lot of hype built around this young talent. And he's got to show us something.
01:55Look at that rock star energy factory Husqvarna.
01:59Binnick is just taking off. Shimoda's got his hands full with Cole Davies.
02:04You want to know what a perfect track is and the perfect amount of traction grip?
02:08Grip, you are seeing it live right here on your screen.
02:13These guys can play on the power. A lot of lean angle in the corners.
02:18Absolutely flying right now. It gets no better than this.
02:22A 20-year-old from Morganton, North Carolina, leads the way through the whoops.
02:30And he's got the world champion chasing him down.
02:33Thrasher is in fourth. Jalik Swole's made a good start in fifth.
02:36Where is the Daytona winner in Seth Hamaker?
02:39Where is the championship leader in Pierce Brown?
02:43Something's happened to him. He is plummeting.
02:45Brown is way at the back of the pack.
02:49That is not what he wanted at the beginning.
02:52Every single rider will tell you in a Triple Crown,
02:55you've got to get a good start and you've got to keep yourself towards the front.
02:58Well, and that's right.
02:59One of the keys to these Triple Crowns is having a first good race.
03:04Why? Because it kind of takes the pressure off.
03:06What you don't want to happen is your main competitors
03:09having a good first and second race.
03:11And you're playing catch-up the whole night.
03:13Oh, look at this pass by Davies up the inside.
03:16Perfect execution.
03:19We've often talked about just how fast Cole Davies is through those whoops section.
03:23Great pass by Joe Shimoda.
03:25Bottom box. Look for the red flag.
03:26There's your championship leader in Pierce Brown.
03:29Yeah.
03:30As he starts to make his way back.
03:32Well, and this is where you have to go.
03:34You can go to damage mode right now.
03:36Damage control. Pardon me.
03:38He's got to pass as many guys as possible.
03:42Got to be heads-up riding, too.
03:44A lot of these guys are going different lines.
03:48You've got to predict where they're going to go and not have a collision.
03:51Daxton Benick leads the way.
03:53A lot of racing to come tonight.
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04:17And watch as we come across the whoops.
04:20Now, this rhythm lane right here, some riders doing different combinations.
04:24And it's going to get super ruddy as the second and third race approach the night.
04:32Tripling onto this tabletop.
04:33Now, the whoops right here.
04:35This is a passing option for Cole Davies if he can get a good run into the whoops.
04:39Here we go.
04:40Look at this.
04:40He's been blisteringly fast through here all day long.
04:43And he's done it beautifully.
04:45Yeah, watch the difference here in riding style.
04:47How you see Dax, he sits down before that jump.
04:50Cole stands up.
04:51When you stand up over that little jump onto the tabletop, it's actually a little bit faster.
04:56The bike doesn't compress as much.
04:57And you're able to drive through that.
04:59The 18-year-old New Zealander leads the way.
05:03He was pretty confident in his statements after last weekend's Daytona event.
05:09He said, look, if I do what I know I can do, nobody can touch me.
05:15Yeah, absolutely.
05:16I mean, and again, no surprise.
05:18This is what we expected of him, Will.
05:21Ricky's kind of changed a little bit in his attitude in the sense that he wanted to win right from
05:26the get-go
05:26when we started the East rounds here in Arlington.
05:29And he was pretty tough on himself when that didn't happen.
05:32And speaking to the team now, they said he's kind of learned to just shoulder that a little bit better.
05:37He's looking at the positives, that was bad starts in both of those two rounds, but was able to work
05:42his way forward.
05:43And now he's able to let that go.
05:44We do have to remember, Ricky, that this is only his second year racing.
05:47So, so much for him still to learn.
05:49And as he cranks off these rounds here, he's figuring that out mentally as well as on the track.
05:53Wow, you're right, it is only his second year, but when you're at the talent of him, and you did
05:59so well your rookie year,
06:00these are the expectations that come along with that.
06:03This is a guy who went toe-to-toe, right, with Hayden Deegan, and then he went down in a
06:09confrontation with Deegan.
06:10But he is uber-talented, but there has been, to Will's point, that simmering frustration.
06:15Maybe up until now, this is going to take the cork out of the bottle a little bit.
06:20Right, this is, again, this is what we expected of him, and JT talked about it.
06:23And JT, I just got to ask, were you expecting this at the first race?
06:28I was, but hey, let's think about Hayden Deegan's first race at Tiffany West this year.
06:32Did not go to plan.
06:34He found it at race two.
06:35Maybe it's race three for Cole Davies.
06:37And, Ricky, that injury speed, you talked about the whoops.
06:40Watch how fast he is entering these whoops.
06:43He is decimating everybody else at injury speed.
06:47You can see the number 10 there, Seth Hamaker, trying to play catch-up.
06:53Piers coming up through the pack.
06:55He's worked his way up, only to 15th.
06:57And the thing that's really hardly in these triple crown races is these guys only race 10 minutes plus one
07:03lap.
07:03It's almost like a heat race.
07:05So a lot of these riders have the fitness to go super hard for that short amount of time,
07:11which makes it more difficult to make passes.
07:13Trying to work his way by Liam Oloff.
07:17Great to see Oloff out there qualifying for the main event.
07:23Running up in the top 15.
07:27How about in the bottom box, this battle for third last week, Seth Hamaker.
07:31That was an awesome ride to get that Daytona win.
07:34So special in his career.
07:35But considering what had transpired earlier in the day, where he had a very heavy fall, hurt his shoulder, bike
07:41was damaged,
07:42couldn't go on in qualifying, and then to bounce back that way.
07:45He also had, like, a little drop in his heat race as well.
07:48Right.
07:49So as he works his way further forward, got a little squirrely there through the whoops.
07:52Yeah, the whoops are starting to get chewed up.
07:55These riders are going to struggle, and it is going to be a challenge.
07:58Keep your eye out.
07:59They're probably going, a lot of riders are probably going to start jumping those whoops.
08:03They were doing it earlier today in qualifying practice.
08:06Probably a little more consistent for them to do that rather than blitzing.
08:11Will?
08:13Ricky, a question about when they start jumping here.
08:17I asked a few riders today, and they were like, it's going to be a combo between when you feel
08:21like it's getting uncomfortable to keep skimming,
08:24and also when the team is saying, hang on a second, this is not faster anymore,
08:28and then they have to communicate that to the mechanic who puts it on the pit board.
08:32So at what point here do they say, hang on a second, I've got to call this and go to
08:35the jump line as Joe makes the pass there?
08:36Yeah, that's a nice pass for Joe Shimoda to get by Dax, but I think as a rider, you know,
08:42you have to be super intuitive, and you have to make that call.
08:45You have to be aware, and see here, Dax tries to defend the position.
08:49He doesn't.
08:49That was a great pass by Seth Hamaker to get by.
08:53Keep an eye out on those inside lines right there.
08:55You see that Dax tried to go sneak up in there, make the pass back by Seth.
09:00It's going to come up a little short.
09:02Meanwhile, Cole Davies has opened up a four-plus second advantage over Joe Shimoda and Seth Hamaker,
09:10just two minutes left.
09:11You see Seth right there, and even Joe, they weren't able to do that combination through the rhythm section,
09:16and that is because these rhythm lanes are getting ruddy already,
09:21and this track is going to be absolutely brutal as these races go on here tonight.
09:28A lot of fun to watch.
09:29Let's work our way further down the order, and let's give a shout-out to Nate Thrasher,
09:34top five at the moment.
09:35Cody Shock is in sixth.
09:36Nice start.
09:37Jaleek Swal aboard the Triumph.
09:39How about Devin Simonson?
09:40He's from Terre Haute here in Indiana, so this is a home race,
09:44although he calls North Carolina home now.
09:46And then you've got Cullen Park in the top ten.
09:50Seven Towers as well.
09:51Simonson doing a great job this year.
09:53I feel like this is a breakout year for him, working with Chad Reed over at that Club MX Yamaha
09:59team,
10:00and you just have to believe that one of the reasons, not only from the team perspective,
10:04but that coaching and that knowledge that a champion like Chad Reed has.
10:08This has been quite the comeback.
10:10We watched Joe Shimoda by championship leader, Pierce Brown.
10:13He's almost breaking into the top ten after being last on the opening lap.
10:21Yeah, it's just so tough with these Triple Crowns.
10:24Like I was talking about, man, if you have a first bad race or not up here with your competitors,
10:30at that stage you're just playing catch-up the rest of the night,
10:34having to force certain situations or circumstances.
10:38Shimoda's a fan of the Triple Crown.
10:40He said, look, you've got three chances to either keep doing what you've been doing
10:44or fix some mistakes or errors.
10:47Yeah, it really takes a lot of discipline and puts these riders in a situation.
10:52Uh-oh.
10:53That did not look good.
10:54No, it puts them in a situation to where they have to execute multiple times.
10:59JT, tell us more about Joe.
11:01I'm just watching the timing here.
11:02He's closed that gap down to under three seconds.
11:05Yeah.
11:05And in front of Cole Davies, he has a lot of lap traffic.
11:09So you figure with eight seconds plus a lap to go, maybe Davies can manage this thing.
11:13But Joe Shimoda's done a great job of digging into this gap.
11:16I'm just, I mean, I'm just super pumped for Joe.
11:20I mean, this is a rider who had a gnarly injury that he sustained in the offseason.
11:24I don't know that he was certain he was going to make it back.
11:27Obviously, the goal was to, but, man, he comes out at Arlington, has a great finish,
11:32riding exceptionally well considering the circumstances.
11:36And there he is.
11:37He's just been getting good starts and plugging away.
11:40That injury that Ricky was talking about was a broken neck.
11:43Had surgery, did his recovery time, rehab, came back strong.
11:47He was on the set with Weij and myself at A1.
11:50Yeah.
11:50Like, he was still in recovery mode that recently.
11:53So this has been very impressive.
11:55Well, like J.T. was talking about and Cole Davies coming up on lappers,
11:59it's going to be difficult for some of these lappers to just move around.
12:03And the reason it's going to be difficult is because how ruddy it is.
12:06So they just basically have to stay married to their line.
12:09They can't go from one side of the track to the other because of that.
12:13Man, look at this guy.
12:14Here he is.
12:15He is really pretty to watch ride, that's for sure.
12:18Now he's got himself back to where he says he should be.
12:22This is more like the Cole Davies we expected to see at the beginning of this East Division Championship.
12:28Last run through the whoops.
12:31Yeah, his form is just very neutral on the bike and a very nice riding style.
12:37Been very purposeful today.
12:38I watched him in qualifying first time out.
12:40He waited for the whole field to go by.
12:43He had his own track space.
12:46Race win for Cole Davies.
12:48That's his fourth individual race win in Triple Crown format for his teammate from Monster Energy Star Yamaha.
12:55Pierce Brown had to work his way through the field, trying to get as many positions as he can.
13:02This is all about the cumulative points on the night.
13:05You've got to try and finish as low as possible.
13:08Let's see if he goes for it.
13:10Oh, Jaleek isn't able to triple that section.
13:12They're going to play cat and mouse.
13:14He's not going to be able to get the position.
13:16How about that?
13:17He got back into the top ten.
13:19So well done to Cole Davies.
13:21We'll hear from him in a moment.
13:22Good stuff.
13:23His teammate had to work hard.
13:24He's not going to be able to get the position.
13:24He's not going to be able to get the position.
13:24He's not going to be able to get the position.
13:24He's not going to be able to get the position.
13:25He's not going to be able to get the position.
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