- 2 days ago
2026 Round 9 250 Triple Crown Race 1
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00:00The first of three races, 250 East, the Triple Crown is underway here in Indy.
00:06Dexton Bennett gets away to a really good start.
00:09Bennett on that Husky.
00:12Here comes Joe Shimoda on the Honda, second place at the moment.
00:16Man, I'll tell you what, Joe Shimoda has been getting some great starts here
00:20in these first two rounds of this championship.
00:24But Bennett, he was fast today, again, three weeks in a row.
00:29And this is what we wanted to see.
00:30JT talked about it at the top of the show, that number 37 right there.
00:34He is in the hot seat for me.
00:36A lot of hype built around this young talent, and he's got to show us something.
00:41Look at that rock star energy factory Husqvarna.
00:44Bennett is just taking off.
00:46Shimoda's got his hands full with Cole Davies.
00:50You want to know what a perfect track is and the perfect amount of traction, grip?
00:55You are seeing it live right here on your screen.
00:58These guys can lay on the power.
01:01A lot of lean angle in the corners.
01:04Absolutely flying right now.
01:06It gets no better than this.
01:07A 20-year-old from Morganton, North Carolina, leads the way through the whoops.
01:15And he's got the world champion chasing him down.
01:18Thrasher is in fourth.
01:20Jaleed Swole's made a good start in fifth.
01:22Where is the Daytona winner in Seth Hamaker?
01:24Where is the championship leader?
01:26In Pierce Brown.
01:28Something's happened to him.
01:29He is plummeting.
01:31Brown is way at the back of the pack.
01:35That is not what he wanted at the beginning.
01:37Every single rider will tell you in a Triple Crown, you've got to get a good start and you've got
01:42to keep yourself towards the front.
01:44Well, and that's right.
01:44One of the keys to these Triple Crowns is having a first good race.
01:50Why?
01:50Because it kind of takes the pressure off.
01:52What you don't want to happen is your main competitors having a good first and second race.
01:57And you're playing catch-up the whole night.
01:59Oh, look at this pass by Davies.
02:01Up the inside.
02:02Perfect execution.
02:04We've often talked about just how fast Cole Davies is through those whoops section.
02:09Great pass by Joe Shimoda.
02:10Bottom box.
02:11Look for the red flag.
02:12There's your championship leader in Pierce Brown.
02:15Yeah.
02:15As he starts to make his way back.
02:17Well, and this is where you have to go.
02:19You're going to go to damage mode right now.
02:22Damage control.
02:23Pardon me.
02:23He's got to pass as many guys as possible.
02:28Got to be heads up riding, too.
02:30A lot of these guys going in.
02:31You're going different lines.
02:34You've got to predict where they're going to go and not have a collision.
02:37Zaxon Benek leads the way.
02:39A lot of racing to come tonight.
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03:03Watch as we come across the Wolves.
03:05Now, this rhythm lane right here, some riders doing different combinations.
03:10And it's going to get super ruddy as the second and third race approach the night.
03:17Tripling onto this tabletop.
03:19Now the Wolves right here.
03:20This is a passing option for Cole Davies if he can get a good run into the Wolves.
03:24Here we go.
03:25Look at this.
03:26He's been blisteringly far through here all day long.
03:29And he's done it beautifully.
03:30Yeah.
03:31Watch the difference here in riding style.
03:32How you see Dax, he sits down before that jump.
03:36Cole stands up.
03:36When you stand up over that little jump onto the tabletop, it's actually a little bit faster.
03:41The bike doesn't compress as much and you're able to drive through that.
03:44The 18-year-old New Zealander leads the way.
03:49He was pretty confident in his statements after last weekend's Daytona event.
03:55He said, look, if I do what I know I can do, nobody can touch me.
04:00Yeah, absolutely.
04:01I mean, and again, no surprise.
04:03This is what we expected of him, Will.
04:06Yeah, Ricky's kind of changed a little bit his attitude in the sense that he wanted to win
04:11right from the get-go when we started the East Rounds here in Arlington.
04:15And he was pretty tough on himself when that didn't happen.
04:18And speaking to the team now, they said he's kind of learned to just shoulder that a little bit better.
04:22He's looking at the positives.
04:24That was bad starts in both of those two rounds but was able to work his way forward.
04:28And now he's able to let that go.
04:30We do have to remember, Ricky, that this is only his second year racing.
04:33So, so much for him still to learn.
04:35And as he cranks off these rounds here, he's figuring that out mentally as well as on the track.
04:39Wow, you're right.
04:39It is only his second year.
04:41But when you're the talent of him and you did so well your rookie year,
04:46these are the expectations that come along with that.
04:48This is a guy who went toe-to-toe, right, with Hayden Deegan.
04:52And then he went down in a confrontation with Deegan.
04:56But he is uber-talented.
04:57But there has been, to Will's point, that simmering frustration.
05:01Maybe up until now, this is going to take the cork out of the bottle a little bit.
05:05Right.
05:06Again, this is what we expected of him.
05:08And JT talked about it.
05:09And, JT, I just got to ask, were you expecting this at the first race?
05:14I was.
05:14But, hey, let's think about Hayden Deegan's first race at Tupi New West this year.
05:18Did not go to plan.
05:19He found it at race two.
05:21Maybe it's race three for Cole Davies.
05:23And, Ricky, that entry speed.
05:25He talked about the whoops.
05:25Watch how fast he is entering these whoops.
05:28He is decimating everybody else at entry speed.
05:33You can see the number 10 there.
05:35Seth Hamaker trying to play catch up.
05:38Here's coming up through the pack.
05:40He's worked his way up only to 15th.
05:43And the thing that's really hardly in these Triple Crown races is these guys only race 10 minutes plus one
05:49lap.
05:49It's almost like a heat race.
05:51So, a lot of these riders have the fitness to go super hard for that short amount of time, which
05:57makes it more difficult to make passes.
05:59Trying to work his way by Liam Olof.
06:03Great to see Olof out there qualifying for the main event.
06:08Running up in the top 15.
06:12How about if the bottom box has battled for third last week?
06:16Seth Hamaker.
06:17That was an awesome ride to get that Daytona win.
06:20So special in his career.
06:21But, considering what had transpired earlier in the day where he had a very heavy fall, hurt his shoulder, bike
06:27was damaged, couldn't go on in qualifying.
06:29And then to bounce back that way.
06:31He also had like a little drop in his heat race as well.
06:34So, as he works his way further forward, got a little squirrely there through the whoops.
06:38Yeah, the whoops are starting to get chewed up.
06:40These riders are going to struggle.
06:42And it is going to be a challenge.
06:44Keep your eye out.
06:45A lot of riders are probably going to start jumping those whoops.
06:48They were doing it earlier today in qualifying practice.
06:52Probably a little more consistent for them to do that rather than blitzing.
06:57Well.
06:59Ricky, a question about when they learn, when they start jumping here.
07:03I asked a few riders today and they were like, it's going to be a combo between when you feel
07:07like it's getting uncomfortable to keep skimming.
07:10And also, when the team is saying, hang on a second, this is not faster anymore.
07:14And then they have to communicate that to the mechanic who puts it on the pit board.
07:17So, at what point here do they say, hang on a second, I'm going to call this and go to
07:20the jump line as Joe makes the pass out?
07:22Yeah, that's a nice pass for Joe Shimoda to get by Dax.
07:25But I think as a rider, you know, you have to be super intuitive.
07:28And you have to make that call.
07:30You have to be aware.
07:32And see here, Dax tries to defend the position.
07:34He doesn't.
07:35That was a great pass by Seth Hamaker to get by.
07:38Keep an eye out on those inside lines right there.
07:41You see that Dax tried to go sneak up in there, make the pass back by Seth.
07:45He's going to come up a little short.
07:48Meanwhile, Cole Davies has opened up a four-plus second advantage over Joe Shimoda and Seth Hamaker.
07:56Just two minutes left.
07:57You see Seth right there.
07:58And even Joe, they weren't able to do that combination through the rhythm section.
08:02And that is because these rhythm lanes are getting ruddy already.
08:07And this track is going to be absolutely brutal as these races go on here tonight.
08:13A lot of fun to watch.
08:15Let's work our way further down the order.
08:17And let's give a shout-out to Nate Thrasher, top five at the moment.
08:20Cody Shock is in sixth.
08:22Nice start.
08:23Jaleet Swole aboard the Triumph.
08:24How about Devin Simonson?
08:26He's from Terre Haute here in Indiana.
08:28So this is a home race, although he calls North Carolina home now.
08:32And then you've got Cullen Park in the top ten.
08:35Seven Towers as well.
08:37Simonson doing a great job this year.
08:39I feel like this is a breakout year for him, working with Chad Reed over at the Club MX Yamaha
08:45team.
08:45And you just have to believe that one of the reasons, not only from the team perspective,
08:50but that coaching and that knowledge that a champion like Chad Reed has.
08:54This has been quite the comeback.
08:55We watched Joe Shimoda by championship leader, Pierce Brown.
08:59He's almost breaking into the top ten after being last on the opening lap.
09:06Yeah, it's just, it's so tough with these triple crowns.
09:10Like I was talking about, man, if you have a first bad race or not up here with your competitors,
09:16at that stage you're just playing catch-up the rest of the night.
09:20Having to force certain situations or circumstances.
09:24Shimoda's a fan of the triple crown.
09:26He said, look, you've got three chances to either keep doing what you've been doing or fix some mistakes or
09:32errors.
09:32Yeah, it really takes a lot of discipline and puts these riders in a situation.
09:38Uh-oh.
09:39That did not look good.
09:40No.
09:40It puts them in a situation to where they have to execute multiple times.
09:44Jaiti, tell us more about Joe.
09:46I'm just watching the timing here.
09:48He's closed that gap down to under three seconds.
09:50Yeah.
09:51And in front of Cole Davies, he has a lot of lap traffic.
09:54So you sit bigger with eight seconds plus a lap to go.
09:57Maybe Davies can manage this thing.
09:59But Joe Shimoda's done a great job of digging into this gap.
10:02I'm just, I mean, I'm just super pumped for Joe.
10:05I mean, this is a rider who had a gnarly injury that he sustained in the offseason.
10:10I don't know that he was certain he was going to make it back.
10:12Obviously, the goal was to, but, man, he comes out at Arlington, has a great finish,
10:18riding exceptionally well considering the circumstances.
10:21And there he is.
10:22He's just been getting good starts and plugging away.
10:25That injury that Ricky was talking about was a broken neck.
10:28Had surgery, did his recovery time, rehab, came back strong.
10:33He was on the set with Ouija and myself at A1.
10:35Yeah.
10:36Like, he was still in recovery mode that recently.
10:38So this has been very impressive.
10:40Well, like JT was talking about and Cole Davies coming up on lappers, it's going to be difficult
10:46for some of these lappers to just move around.
10:49And the reason it's going to be difficult is because how ruddy it is.
10:52So they just basically have to stay married to their line.
10:55They can't go from one side of the track to the other because of that.
10:59Man, look at this guy.
11:00He is really pretty to watch ride.
11:03That's for sure.
11:03Now he's got himself back to where he says he should be.
11:08This is more like the Cole Davies we expected to see at the beginning of this East Division
11:13Championship.
11:14Last run through the whoops.
11:16His form is just very neutral on the bike and a very nice riding style.
11:23Been very purposeful today.
11:24I watched him in qualifying first time out.
11:26He waited for the whole field to go by.
11:29He had his own track space.
11:31Race win for Cole Davies.
11:33That's his fourth individual race win in Triple Crown format.
11:38But his teammate from Monster Energy Star Yamaha,
11:41Pierce Brown had to work his way through the field.
11:45Trying to get as many positions as he can.
11:48This is all about the cumulative points on the night.
11:50You've got to try and finish as low as possible.
11:53Let's see if he goes for it.
11:55Oh, Jaleek isn't able to triple that section.
11:57They're going to play cat and mouse.
12:00He's not going to be able to get the position.
12:02How about that?
12:03He got back into the top ten.
12:04So well done to Cole Davies.
12:06We'll hear from him in a moment.
12:08Good stuff.
12:08His teammate had to work hard.
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