The 520 Chain Cafe: Ironman National part 1

With the 450 Championship still to be decided there was a lot of excitement going into the final round of the 2018 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship being held at Ironman Raceway in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The weather was going to make things interesting, with very heavy rain in the morning, making it a mud race.

Number 23 Aaron Plessinger didn't seem to mind. Having come from a cross country racing background gave him an edge in the brutal conditions. Having already clinched the 250 Championship, and just signed with the Monster Energy/Yamaha Factory Racing team to move up to the 450 class for 2019, he hadn't anything to prove, but still won both moto 1 and 2 for an overall win. Aaron comes off on TV as being one of the happiest and most friendly people around, and in person is just the same. He's the real deal both on and off the track, so look for even more great things to come from this guy.

It was a great weekend for Yamaha, with number 51 Justin Barcia going 1-1 in both 450 motos for an overall win.

2 Cooper Webb

24 Dylan Ferrandis

31 Colt Nichols

49 Nick Gaines

Defending champ number 1 Eli Tomac came into the race with a decent, but not insurmountable points lead in the 450 Championship over Marvin Musquin. With the race conditions being how they were, anything could happen. Eli wasn't able to clinch the title in the first moto, ending up one point short, but got it done in the second.

17 Joey Savatgy

35 Austin Forkner

There was much buzz about 2009 Motocross Champion number 22 Chan Reed coming to race on a JGR Suzuki. While he still races Supercross, he hasn't done an outdoor national in 3 years. He's a crowd favorite wherever he goes, and it was really great to get to see him race. He went 5-8 for an 8th overall, a good result especially considering he hadn't even seen the bike until a few days before.