Barcia and Tomac come up just short in final motocross charge

LAKE ELSINORE, Calif. (Sept. 9) -- In a last-ditch effort to salvage the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, the GEICO Honda race team put in maximum effort at the season-ending Red Bull Lake Elsinore National, but ultimately came up just short of a title.

Justin Barcia topped the team's results for the day with 3-1 moto scores for second overall, and also took second in the final standings behind Blake Baggett.

Teammate Eli Tomac entered the race second in points behind Baggett and produced an all-out effort in both motos. In the first race, he launched an incredible late-race charge to catch Baggett, putting in a lap two seconds faster than anyone else through the day's racing. But that charge left Tomac overheated in the 100-plus degree temps, and he was forced to back down the pace in order to reach the finish.

"It was okay, except the points leader [Baggett] finished in front of me," Tomac said. "I had pretty much hit the redline the lap before that, so I decided to just go and give it all I had. That was pretty much it. The heat was really bad. Since humidity usually isn't a issue here, I was really surprised that the California race was the hottest of the year."

A early crash in the second moto ended any chance Tomac had of grabbing the title.

"I was around seventh, my hand flew off the bars and I went flying," said the Colorado rider, who got up in 40th place but rallied all the way back to 14th. "I knocked myself kind of silly, and I was last. I picked myself back up, but it really took me about half of the moto to even get going. All I lost was one spot [in the standings] today, and that's just between second and third. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as if I had gone from first to second."

Tomac ended up seventh overall for the day, and third in the final season standings.

Barcia also had a shot at the title, and he led the first moto early. Baggett and Tomac were eventually able to get by, relegating him to third. In Moto 2, the New York native grabbed the holeshot and checked out, taking the win.

"The first moto was extremely tough," Barcia said. "I rode good for awhile but then I got super hot. I think all of us out there were baking in the oven. Second moto, I got a good start and put down some hard laps. Then I put it on cruise control. I was happy to end my time in the 250 class on a bit of a high note.

"It's pretty emotional," Barcia said of his final race for the GEICO Honda team (he will move up to the premier 450 class in 2013 for the Factory Honda team). "I've been with the team five years, and the relationship goes back even further than that, all the way to my 65cc days. I'm going to miss those guys over there, we had a good time and won some Supercross championships."

Wil Hahn put in his best ride of the season to finish fourth via 5-4 scores.

"It was my best finish of the year, too bad I had to wait until the end of the year," Hahn said. "I got two solid starts, that helped a lot. The first moto I kind of fell off a little bit at the end, not too happy about that, but the second moto I felt like I got stronger and stronger all the way to the end, and I passed [Ken] Roczen and [Jason] Anderson late in the race. All in all, I finished 24 motos, and that was my goal because I've had a couple of rough years."

Justin Bogle wasn't happy with his day. "It went terrible," said Bogle, who went 15-11 for 13th overall. "This had to be the worst of the year for me. It was my fault because I rode completely horrible. I didn't even get into the top 10 in either moto. Not too stoked. I'm ready to not look at a dirt bike for a few weeks. Next year is not going to go like this."

Barcia will next compete as part of the three-rider Team USA effort at the Motocross of Nations team championships in Belgium on September 30th.