EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Report by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — Simon Cudby photo —
Red Bull/KTM’s Marvin Musquin charged around defending 250SX East Regional champion Justin Bogle on lap 11 of Saturday afternoon’s Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship, East Coast championship round at MetLife Stadium and led the final five laps of the main event to capture his sixth victory of 2015 and lock up the series championship.
The win was the 10th of Musquin’s 250SX East Region career and the championship was the Frnchman’s first-ever title on U.S. soil.
Bogle took the SupercrossLive.com Holeshot Award at the drop of the gate aboard his GEICO Honda, but was dogged by points leader Marvin Musquin into the first set of turns, with Kevin Peters behind the pair in third.
Savatgy took third away from Peters at the end of lap one, but by then, that battle was five seconds behind race leader Bogle — who charged out to an early 1.6 second gap over Musquin.
By lap five, Jeremy Martin had moved from seventh to fourth aboard his Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki, and ahead of him, Musquin had cut down Bogle’s lead to just three-quarters of a second with a third of the 15-lap event. Musquin pressured Bogle for three laps until lap eight, when Bogle pushed the gap out to two seconds in lap traffic.
Meanwhile, behind the front duo, Savatgy and Martin were putting on a valiant battle for third — coming to a head at the end of lap eight when Savatgy pushed wide and ran Martin off the track while the pair were wheel-to-wheel for the final podium spot. While Martin was able to stay upright and use the runoff area to rejoin the track and not lose a position, he lost about a second off the rear wheel of Savatgy’s Kawasaki.
Martin’s problems would continue with two laps to go, when he went down giving one final chase to Savatgy’s bike. The ____ rider would remount and continue in fourth, but lose nearly five
Up front was the show though — and once Musquin used the power move to take the lead from Bogle, he ran off to a dominating victory — with his lead stretching as large as six and a half seconds at times over the final circuits.
“There have been so many things behind me [this season] that have helped me to be [as good as we’ve been] on the race track,” Musquin said on the podium. “[Red Bull/KTM] built us a brand-new bike this season and it worked so good on the track. I was able to do so many more things out there that I wasn’t able to do before on the old bike. It helped me so much.”
“I’ve been dreaming of this [number one] plate. Two years ago I almost won it [against Wil Hahn] and then last year I got hurt and didn’t race, so with this being my last year on the 250 I’m really happy to come away with this number one plate. Now it’s time to work harder and keep chasing the dreams.”
Musquin also circled a good-luck icon that made his season-ending triumph all the sweeter.
“[My wife, ] never missed a session all season,” Musquin smiled.
For Bogle, coming up second was bittersweet after nearly grabbing his second win in the last three Eastern Regional races.
“[You’re] never satisfied when you don’t win,” Bogle said of the win slipping away. “This thing, it hurts. It hurts bad losing that championship, and losing that race the way I just did, I don’t feel very well about that. Congratulations to Marvin, he had an incredible season and he was the better man this year. I’ll keep working, and then come back up here and fight for another one of these things [next year].”
With the 2015 points season wrapped up, the 250SX East riders will travel west to Las Vegas and the Sam Boyd Stadium next weekend for the non-points finale to the 2015 Monster Energy AMA Supercross season — the East/West Challenge — on Saturday, May 2.
Coverage of that event airs on FOX Sports 1 at 10 p.m. Eastern time.
