00:00Ken Rock's in third, your defending champion, Cooper Webb in fourth, Justin Cooper fifth,
00:05and that wild card spot is 15th, one we don't see a lot in Grant Harland.
00:11Well, the fantasy picks are picking Eli, and that's kind of what I want to see.
00:16You know, where is he going to stack up?
00:18I talked about it, that's top of the show.
00:20He's 35 seconds off of the lead last week.
00:23Rarely do you see this from a two-time Supercross champion.
00:25You know B-Smoke can pull it out and come out there.
00:28Let's see what he can do.
00:30I think this is an important night for him.
00:32Let's see how it shakes out.
00:34And a man that might be a problem for him, as you can see there, Ricky, directly to his right,
00:39Ken Ruxin.
00:40He was on top for the first qualifier of today, and an overall qualifying hunter got it,
00:45but it was by less than a tenth that Ken there was in second place,
00:49and he was fastest through the whoops throughout the day.
00:52And as you said, Ricky, that's going to be key here tonight.
00:55Kenny has not given up on this championship by any means.
00:58He wants another win here tonight, and riding the way he was in qualifying.
01:01It could happen.
01:03Well, his teammate Justin Bogle, there's no pressure for this guy.
01:06He was semi-retired.
01:07He went off to Europe racing a little bit, but he is back in a fill-in role.
01:11One of the most stylish riders we have in the field.
01:14A former 250 Divisional Supercross champion.
01:17It's all upside for the 891 of Bogle here tonight.
01:20Great to see him back.
01:21And guess who else is back?
01:22A champion in the form of Monster Energy Kawasaki's Chase Sexton.
01:28Let's hear from him.
01:30Yeah, I feel a lot better than I did a few weeks ago.
01:33Obviously, I had a crash before Daytona.
01:35I ended up bruising my sacrum area, and it was kind of hard to walk for a week or so.
01:41But after that, it came along pretty well, and I've been riding for two weeks now,
01:45so I feel good, and, yeah, we'll see tomorrow.
01:49It's been three races off, but it feels like an eternity, so, yeah,
01:53we'll give it our best shot, try and get off the gate good, and see where we stack up.
01:57A lot of people pleased to see the 2023 champ back.
02:00He missed Daytona, Indy, and Birmingham after that practice crash in the lead-up to Daytona.
02:08So he looked pretty good this morning, looked good in qualifying, looked as smooth as ever.
02:12No surprise.
02:13Yeah, he looked like he hasn't missed a beat, and, yeah, he could come out here and dominate,
02:17and it would not surprise me here tonight.
02:21Ready to go.
02:21Heat 1, 450s here in Detroit.
02:24Let's see who gets the jump.
02:26Ken Roxen has been riding very well here today.
02:29Roxen gets a good start.
02:31Not quite as good as who got that flyer.
02:34Christian Craig.
02:35Beautiful start.
02:36Jordan Smith goes leaping into the lead aboard the Triumph.
02:41Jordan qualified his best yet.
02:45Down!
02:45Two riders.
02:47That was Marchbanks.
02:48Garrett Marchbanks going down.
02:50And Leitzel is the other one?
02:51Yeah, I think it...
02:53I believe so.
02:56Oh, no.
02:57Yeah.
02:59Oh, tough crash.
03:01George Smith had a great qualifying practice earlier today.
03:05Yes.
03:05And he's coming off his best 450 result, too, which was a top 10 in Birmingham last week.
03:11Let's go back to that opening lap crash.
03:13See if he can figure out what went down.
03:16Okay, there you can see.
03:17Ooh.
03:19You see right there, Marchbanks kind of checks up for his teammate.
03:23Looks like maybe he hit neutral.
03:25Goes over the handlebars.
03:27Man, Leitzel just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
03:30I hate it for both of those riders.
03:32Hopefully they'll be all right.
03:34Yeah, Logan couldn't do anything.
03:35You know, we talked about Eli Tomac.
03:38Need to see Bismo come out.
03:40But look, he's going to get passed by Ken Roxen.
03:43Just sneaks right up the inside.
03:44I need to see something from Eli because he wasn't that good today in qualifying practice either.
03:49Not sure if there's an underlying issue there or what is going on.
03:54Man, great to see the four.
03:57Oh, here we go.
03:58Yeah.
03:58Return race and return to the front for Chase Sexton.
04:02Remember how I talked about that section, JT, at the opening.
04:05Keep your eye on that tabletop, how guys going off and jumping over that single.
04:10That was what I meant.
04:12Yeah, innovating a little bit there.
04:13And, you know, Chase Sexton, he's had some time off.
04:16His 2026 campaign hasn't been so great for him.
04:19He got that one win today, too.
04:21But it's so important, I believe, on the mental side for Chase Sexton to start fast.
04:26To get a decent start in the heat race.
04:28Get out front.
04:29Maybe get a win here to get on the right foot.
04:32But he's one of those riders that really feeds off momentum, whether positive or negative.
04:37If he can get a heat win, it just opens the door for what's possible in the main event, Ricky.
04:42This is great stuff from Jordan Smith.
04:44He's got Ken Rockson trying to figure out where to execute a pass on him.
04:49But he spent a little time with Ivan Tedesco earlier today, who's part of the management structure at Triumph Racing.
04:55And he said they're really pleased with Jordan's comeback.
04:58He missed the first six races through injury and then jumped on the bike.
05:01He's getting better, stronger, faster each and every week.
05:04He said they had another productive week in between Birmingham and now.
05:08And look at Jordan go.
05:09And that's the beauty for both the race team and Jordan, is they can keep improving.
05:14Oh, it's a little sideways through the whoops right there.
05:17Kenny gets a great drive just to the right side of the whoops.
05:20It's probably a bit fresher there, not as chewed up.
05:24And these next couple laps for Ken Rockson, you watch the timing and scoring on the left-hand side of
05:30your screen.
05:31I have a feeling that he is going to put in some heater laps.
05:37He had some good pep in his step.
05:39Whoa!
05:40You see that cross jump there that Jordan Smith had.
05:44Here comes Tomac.
05:45Eli's through.
05:46Christian Craig's lining up for a shot at Smith.
05:49And Jordan's down.
05:49Is he?
05:50No, he saves it.
05:51He was sideways.
05:55What a shame.
05:56And now he's going to fall into a really precarious position of not being able to go straight through to
06:03the main.
06:08So Sexton has a three and a half second lead over Rockson.
06:10Then Tomac, Christian Craig, Justin Hill is in the top five.
06:15Let's have a look at Jordan Smith again.
06:16Yeah, it was just like he was in the Hornets nets.
06:18All these guys around him.
06:19Then he collides with George Smith.
06:21Or, pardon me, Christian Craig gets sideways.
06:24I thought he was going to high side.
06:25That was a great job by Jordan.
06:27I hate to see that happen to him.
06:31Rockson's eating into Sexton's lead.
06:33And then here's Eli in third.
06:35Bike three, position three, JT.
06:37Yeah, Ricky, you and I were talking earlier today.
06:39Eli just looked a little bit off in qualifying practice.
06:43He just wasn't able to put clean, quick laps together.
06:46And it honestly couldn't come at a worse time.
06:49And when you look at his point situation, he comes in nine points down off a really difficult Birmingham outing.
06:55This is the night where he needs a bounce-back performance, a vintage Eli win.
07:00And so far, Ricky, I'm just not quite seeing it.
07:03JT, I was asking the team about exactly what you were just talking about there in qualifying.
07:08And they took a close look at it.
07:09Of course, they were watching film, and they did identify Segment 6 here.
07:13And they said, look, if we compare his pace throughout every other part of the track, we're in good shape.
07:18So they identified it, and they talked about it not being a problem.
07:21There were really no changes with the bike.
07:23They set apart from a clicker here and there.
07:25And they said, we've just got to piece that together and improve in that area.
07:28Yeah, and what JT and Will are saying, if you just watch Eli close, he overjumps there,
07:33but his cornering doesn't look right to me, and it doesn't look as consistent.
07:37It's like he can't bowl the corners in some of the flat, sweeping corners.
07:41It's just like not one continuous bowl or sweep around.
07:46It's like he's turning two turns into one.
07:48Like, see right there, he lands, the bike rebounds, it bounces up,
07:51and the bike wants to go straight instead of continuously turning.
07:55Doesn't look like he has good whoop entry speed.
07:57JT, remember, that's what you and I were talking about after practice.
08:01So not sure what's going on there.
08:04Definitely not what we've seen all season long from the two-time champ.
08:08See right there?
08:10Yeah.
08:10Kind of just missed the exit.
08:11It's little nuances like that that we haven't seen from him all season.
08:16And while we're watching the Red Bull KTM, I want to give a shout-out to Aaron Plessinger.
08:21The Cowboy is taking this weekend off.
08:23Not sure when we'll see him back either.
08:26Needed a break.
08:27A little banged up after Birmingham.
08:30So, Aaron, heel up fast.
08:32I want to see you back at the track as soon as possible.
08:35Now, Jordan Smith is starting to close in on Justin Vogel aboard that Twisted T HEP Suzuki.
08:46And the Triumph man is going to make pretty quick work of it.
08:49Yeah, and that rhythm lane right there, you make up so much time if you're able to go off that
08:54little tabletop over the single.
08:56But it is high risk.
08:57Why?
08:58Because that single after the tabletop is huge.
09:00And if you clip that, you come up just too short, you are taking a trip over the handlebars.
09:05This guy.
09:07No surprise.
09:08He's on his way home.
09:09What a great way to return after missing three races.
09:12Pretty sore, too.
09:14It was a nasty crash.
09:15That training crash, practice crash.
09:18But Chase Sexton's back.
09:19He looked good this morning, and he's continuing it.
09:22And it wouldn't surprise anybody if he came back and won the main event.
09:26The Anaheim 2 winner gets his Detroit campaign off to the best possible start, ahead of Ken Rockson.
09:35It's quite a gap back to Eli, and he'll come across the line third, just ahead of Justin Hill.
09:41Nice right.
09:42Justin's been very fast all day.
09:44He qualified in the top five.
09:45Yeah, a ton of speed, and another guy that's super talented on a motorcycle.
09:53He's back.
09:55Sexton is in the house.
09:57Sexton is in the house.
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