Sexton on Gate Race 3 Arlington

I thought he went to start it but it was in gear, but I wasn't fully paying attention.

Chase doin Chase things, I saw it too 😂😂😂

RIght then and there....I knew he was going to "Chase" the race. 

I thought I saw Webb next to him with a stoggie in his mouth 😂😂😂😂

https://www.instagram.com/share/_7duALC8_

He starts it, removes his hand and the bike jumps forward. Then he looks down, lifts his left foot up and starts looking for neutral. 
 I reckon he didn’t quite have the detent roller seated fully in the neutral. The vibration caused it to jump in to gear. It happens. Rare, but it does happen. 

.......any correlation to multiple "stalls" from him this year?

No. 
The stalling is odd- these 450s have so much torque that they’ll pull quite happily from such low rpm if the rider has selected a gear too high. And a rider of his ability won’t be two gears too high. He wouldn’t get it THAT wrong. 

To me it feels like his stalls are like the old ‘flame-out’ issue of the old carb bikes. 
A mapping issue that KTM haven’t quite got right? 

I’m with you. If that thing was fully seated in gear, it would’ve jumped the second he pushed the start button. There was a momentary delay. It might’ve jostled his nerves a little bit. He always has that pre-race ritual where he gets himself fired up and I wonder if he was a little off of his game from the get-go.

I highly doubt something that minor was enough to get him out of rhythm for the start, or like Magoober said it messed with his whole race....if so, that is a symptom of a much larger mental problem lol.

Which, even as a Chase fan, isn't THAT too far fetched considering what we've seen lately.

What happened on the start gate cannot be related to the on track stalling issue. I’ll use these three pictures to explain. 

Picture 1 shows an arm with a roller on the end of it. When we select a gear on a dirtbike that roller is rolls over a selector star and seats firmly in a detent in a selector star. 

Picture 2 shows the selector ‘star’. Notice the detents and notice the smaller, narrower one- that’s neutral. 
On factory bikes, the engineers aim to make this ‘neutral’ detent as shallow and narrow as possible- thus making it harder to find neutral so the risk of the rider hitting neutral whilst riding is reduced. 
Particularly important in SX because riders can use 1st out of tighter turns and shift to 2nd before jump faces. 

By making this neutral detent shallower and narrower means the force of the spring holding the roller in are weaker. 
If when on the gate the rider selects neutral, he has to be very gentle and precise to ‘find’ this narrow neutral detent & it’s possible that the roller ends up sat right on the peak of the neutral detent and the next gear. I suspect this happens most easily with the engine off. 
 the roller is teetering, and the vibrations of the start up are enough to make the roller teeter off the peak, one way or another. If you’re unlucky it’ll go the gear direction, thus stalling the bike. 

Picture 3 shows the whole assembly in situ.

Now, how do we know this is NOT relatable to the on track stalling? 
1: When on track, the rider is making more firm, assertive gear changes. 
If he makes a delicate gear change between 1st & 2nd, the worst he’ll do is unluckily get neutral- and bikes don’t stall in neutral… 

2: if there is a problem with the detent set up, the worst it’ll select is UP one gear higher- and this is a 450 with bags of torque, it’ll pull one gear higher without complaining too much. At worst the rider might not get the big combo out of the corner. 

I’d say the stalling is definitely a flame-out/mapping issue.