Ryan Dungey and Jeremy Martin will be seeking to add to their overall win tallies at the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross UPMC Sports Medicine High Point National.
Red Bull KTM’s Ryan Dungey and Yamalube Star Racing Yamaha’s Jeremy Martin will carry their respective class point leads into High Point Raceway in Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, when the 2015 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship makes its annual stop there this weekend.
Both Dungey and Martin are after their third consecutive series wins and hope to add to there point leads at the 39th Annual UPMC Sports Medicine High Point National, round five of the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship.
Both Dungey and Martin are Minnesota-born, earning a reputation as two of the state’s most prolific riders since the late Donny Schmit, who won the FIM 250cc World Motocross Championship. Dungey is a series veteran who turned pro in 2007. Martin is just in his sophomore season as a pro. More common ground, at least for now, is the fact that both riders have earned 175 points in their respective classes thus far in the Lucas Oil Series.
Dungey took over the Lucas Oil 450cc Pro Motocross Championship point lead at the True Value Thunder Valley National in Colorado, the site of GEICO Honda rider Eli Tomac’s season-ending crash. Dungey backed it up with a win at the very next round at Muddy Creek Raceway in Tennessee last weekend.
With back-to-back runner-up finishes to his credit, RCh Soaring Eagle/Jimmy John’s Suzuki rider Ken Roczen has become Dungey’s closest rival in the battle for the championship. Roczen is the reigning 450cc class champion and appears to be all healed up from the back injury that he suffered just one week before the season began. Team Yoshimura Suzuki’s Blake Baggett has also shown improvement since the start of the season earning his first career overall podium at Thunder Valley and coming up just shy of a second podium last weekend in Tennessee. Baggett and Dungey are the only two riders in the field to finish inside the top 10 in every 450cc moto this season. Baggett is currently third in the 450cc point standings with a 21-point lead over the fourth-placed rider, Autotrader.com/Toyota/Yamaha’s Justin Barcia.
Just as he did in 2014, defending Lucas Oil 250cc Pro Motocross Champion Martin got off to a hot start with a win at the series-opening GoPro Hangtown MX Classic in Sacramento in early May. However, the following weekend at Glen Helen proved to be an early test of Martin’s resiliency as he salvaged fifth and sixth-place results after being plagued with bike issues in the first moto and a crash in the second moto. Since then, Martin has posted two more overall wins and overcome a 19-point deficit in the championship top move back into the 250cc point lead. Each of Martin’s last two wins have come on tracks he had never won at before and, High Point is another venue in which he is currently winless.
Meanwhile, Red Bull KTM’s Marvin Musquin has displayed tremendous consistency in his quest for the Lucas Oil 250cc Pro Motocross Championship title. Musquin barely missed out on a win at the season opener at Hangtown due to a second-moto tiebreaker, but he went 1-1 for the overall win at Glen Helen. A crash in the first moto at Thunder Valley left him with a slightly injured wrist and a 14th-place finish that ultimately cost him the points lead, and this past weekend at Muddy Creek contact from another rider on the opening lap forced Musquin to come from behind to salvage fourth.
Just six points separate Martin from Musquin heading into High Point, with the lead pair surging out to a 47-point lead over the remainder of the field. Musquin is a former winner at High Point, back in 2013, and as the only former winner at the track in the 250cc class he has the speed and the track experience to battle Martin for the overall win.
The UPMC Sports Medicine High Point National gets underway this Saturday, June 13, beginning at 5:30 a.m. PT / 8:30 a.m. ET with practice and qualifying. Opening ceremonies begin at at 9:30 a.m. PDT/12:30 p.m. EDT, immediately followed by racing at 10 a.m. PDT/1 p.m. EDT. MAVTV will carry LIVE broadcast coverage of the first motos at 10 a.m. PDT/1 p.m. EDT. NBC Sports Network will continue with live broadcast coverage of the second motos at 12 Noon PDT/3 p.m. EDT. All the action from High Point Raceway can also be seen via the online live-stream on ProMotocross.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra app.
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