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Held at the famous Budds Creek Motocross Park, the 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship’s tour stop known as the Geico Motorcycle Budds Creek National went off as a major success. Not only were the track conditions at Budds Creek Motocross Park absolutely phenomenal for the event, the weather conditions were also quite good making this event a really smooth competition for every rider involved. When track and weather conditions are not very good, it is much more difficult for riders to fully express their ability and race to the fullest extent of their talent and ability. The sunny weather and warm temperatures made the track surfacing and dirt composition pretty much perfect for the race, and definitely brought out the best in every motocross athlete competing in this event.
Like most of the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship events throughout the 2016 season, the 2016 Geico Motorcycle Budds Creek National showcased two primary competition racing classes in the event. These two racing classes at the Budds Creek event were both 250cc and 450cc categories, which helped to add some diversity to the overall competition and broke up the action of this event into different segments. Anyone who follows motocross racing and competition to any degree knows quite well that spectators and judges can see much different racing tactics, strategies, and characteristics across varying racing classes. For this reason, there were exciting moments of very different kinds across both the 250cc class events and 450cc class racing events, giving race fans an incentive to look closely at both of these categories.
Budds Creek Motocross Park has been home to some of the most prestigious professional motocross events in the history of the sport, and in this way it is fitting to have one of the season wrap-up competitions at this storied location in motocross. Given that the 250cc and 450cc racing events were so intense at the 2016 Budds Creek National, both categories will be receiving equal analysis and attention here. In order to fully inform any motocross racing fans who happened to miss out on the 2016 Geico Motorcycle Budds Creek National event on the 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship tour, the summary details and final rankings for the 250cc and 450cc racing events will now be covered.
2016 Geico Motorcycle Budds Creek National – 250cc Racing Class Final Results:
#1 First Place – Zach Osborne:
Bringing in the first place victory within the 250cc racing class at the 2016 Geico Motorcycle Budds Creek National event was motocross athlete Zach Osborne. Zach is an extremely versatile rider, and he has been competing for a few years now with some pretty big successes so far. With a long way to go in his career, this first place victory within the 250cc racing class this close to the end of the 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship tour season is going to be worth a lot to Zach Osborne in terms of boosting morale and allowing him to rise in the rankings.
While Zach Osborne has a wide ranging array of sponsorships, some of his biggest and most important sponsors include Rockstar Energy Racing, as well as the prestigious motocross designer and manufacturer known as Husqvarna. Those sponsors are definitely lucky to have Zach Osborne on their payroll, since he is racing so well these days and blowing away the competition within the 250cc racing class.
Zach certainly made the most out of the great track conditions at the 2016 Budds Creek National, and held absolutely nothing back in terms of making aggressive passes and doing whatever needed to be done in order to hold on to his impressive lead in this race. The 250cc racing class appears to be suiting Zach quite well as of late, and if his performance at the Budds Creek event this year is any indication, we should expect him to stay in the 250cc and not worry about working on any other classes.
#2 Second Place – Alex Martin:
Making second place at the 2016 Budds Creek National was a great achievement for 250cc racer Alex Martin, a motocross athlete with a tremendous amount of experience in the sport. In fact, Alex Martin is a motocross athlete who was born into a family that was absolutely dominated by the sport of motocross racing. This claim can be easily backed up by the fact that Alex Martin’s family are the owners of a racing facility known as Spring Creek, which is actually a part of the Lucas Oil Professional Moto racing circuit. His career really got started back in 2009 when he was just 19 years old, when he was able to pick up tentative sponsorships with both Honda and Geico.
Ever since then it has been a meteoric rise to the upper echelons of the professional motocross world, and Alex Martin’s second place finish at the 2016 Budds Creek National was yet one more promising statistic in his already impressive career. Alex Martin is a bit different than many of the other competing motocross athletes out there who have a ton of smaller sponsorships, in the sense that he really just has two primary sponsors. For one, he is a member on the Yamalube Star Racing team, and his major sponsorships include both Rock River Powersports, and Yamaha Motorsports.
With these two big name sponsorships under his belt, Alex Martin looked very efficient at the 2016 Budds Creek National racing event while riding his well-maintained Yamaha 250cc across the dry, well-manicured dirt track. Alex Martin’s style can be characterized as an aggressive riding style, but where he differs from many other hard charging riders is that he knows when to back off and play it safe instead of charging a bad pass opportunity and ending up getting boxed out, or worse, suffering some kind of wreck or track accident. Alex Martin’s second place finish in the 250cc event was another big boost to his Lucas Oil rankings as the season starts to wind down, and he is in a great position to finish out the 2016 professional motocross season.
#3 Third Place – Austin Forkner:
Rounding out the podium finishers in the 250cc racing class of the 2016 Budds Creek National motocross competition on the Lucas Oil Pro tour was consummate professional, Austin Forkner. Austin has been in the high end of the rankings for a while now, and has seen his share of wins and podium finishes throughout the incredibly action packed 2016 season. This race was no different for Austin, and though he didn’t make first place here a podium finish is still looking pretty good and will help his Lucas Oil rankings out all the same. Austin Forkner is one of the younger riders among the competitive field, and he is definitely making up for his younger age by showing the rest of the professionals how it is done.
Doing quite well in the 250cc class throughout the 2016 season, Austin Forkner could definitely be picking up some new additional sponsors after how good he has been riding this year. Those sponsors would be added to the already wildly impressive grouping of sponsorships that Forkner has been able to rack up in recent seasons, which included but are not limited to AlpineStars, VP Racing, Sony, Fox, Kawasaki, Kicker, and more. Kawasaki is definitely one of Forkner’s most important sponsorships, especially since he rides for the Monster Pro Circuit Kawasaki racing team. Looking as good as ever on his Kawasaki 250cc at the 2016 Budds Creek National, Austin Forkner used his signature tactics and strategies to earn him the third place podium finish at this event.
2016 Geico Motorcycle Budds Creek National – 450cc Racing Class Final Results:
#1 First Place – Ken Roczen:
Bringing in the first place victory at the 2016 Budds Creek National event in the 450cc racing class was professional motocross racing phenomenon Ken Roczen. Roczen has been having an already fantastic season, with an array of first place finishes under his belt, and this victory is yet one more to add to his rankings. In fact, within the context of the 2016 Lucas Oil Professional Motocross circuit, Ken Roczen is ranked in second place out of every single 450cc rider in the league. He is being beaten only by the first place ranked rider in the 450cc class named Ryan Dungey, and to be fair Dungey is actually dominating the 450cc series by a huge margin.
Where Ken Roczen has accrued 447.00 series points in the 450cc class so far this season on the Lucas Oil rankings, the current 450cc class leader Ryan Dungey has racked up an insanely high points total of 547.00 right now. How Ken Roczen will be able to close that points gap between current 450cc leader Ryan Dungey is not yet clear, but Roczen’s first place win at the 2016 Budds Creek National event should be a strong start toward reaching that goal. Roczen’s quick pacing and efficiency through the hard turns have been his biggest allies so far throughout the 2016 season, and if his win at Budds Creek is any indication, we can expect Roczen to finish out this year with a bang.
#2 Second Place – Justin Barcia:
Another big name in the 450cc racing class of the 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship tour has been Justin Barcia. Justin was able to pull off the second place podium finish at the 2016 Budds Creek National event, which is something he really needed in order to hold his rankings in the 450cc Series lineup. Currently Justin Barcia is trailing behind Ken Roczen in the 2016 season 450cc Series rankings, but only by a margin of six points. Barcia stands in third place within those overall season rankings with a current scoring total of 441.00 points, with Ken Roczen only ahead by a small amount at 447.00 points in total.
Currently riding for the JGR Yamaha racing team, Justin Barcia is maintaining his outstanding sponsorship lineup comprised of JGRMX, Yamaha, and Toyota. Given Barcia’s promising 450cc rankings at the moment, and his strong second place finish at the 2016 Budds Creek National, it would not be too unexpected to see him be able to improve his ranking before the end of the entire season. Had he been able to beat Ken Roczen at Budds Creek it would have helped him a lot more in terms of the 450cc Series rankings, but even still his second place finish is going to be good for those rankings.
#3 Third Place – Marvin Musquin:
Making the third place slot in the 450cc racing class at the 2016 Budds Creek National was French motocross professional, Marvin Musquin. Perhaps the only French contender in the 2016 Lucas Oil Professional Motocross Championship, Marvin had a great race at Budds Creek, and considering that he is one athlete that prefers to race in both the 250cc and 450cc classes, he is doing quite well considering he is spreading himself and his training so thinly across multiple classes.
This suggests the profound versatility that Marvin Musquin possesses as a professional motocross athlete, and speaks to his ability to race well regardless of the racing class at play. Riding for the Red Bull KTM racing team, Musquin is another rider who currently has a really impressive sponsorship lineup behind him. Including KTM, Red Bull Energy Drinks, Oakley Motocross, AlpineStars, and more, Marvin Musquin is a highly in-demand rider who is doing quite well in the 2016 Lucas Oil rankings. Although he is not currently ranked within the top five concerning the 450cc Series point totals, he is ranked in second place within the 250cc Series point totals.
In the 250cc series Marvin is in second with a total of 479.00 points overall, behind Jeremy Martin who has racked up a total of 491.00 points. Marvin Musquin’s performance at the 450cc race of the 2016 Budds Creek National professional motocross event was quite strong indeed, although it is becoming apparent that he tends to perform better and feel more comfortable while racing in the 250cc race category. Even though he can compete and win in the 450cc class, it is quite possible that we could see Marvin Musquin start exclusively racing in the 250cc class by the outset of the 2017 season.
