Dusty Klatt stepped out of his teammate Colton Facciotti’s shadow at Round 7 of the Monster Energy Motocross Nationals in Moncton, NB on Sunday with an impressive double-heat victory.
Facciotti, coming off a clean sweep at Round 6 in Ste-Julie, QC, stayed in the mix to take second overall on the strength of 2-2 heats.
In a surprise upset, the American Tyler Sjoberg grabbed the overall win of the volatile MX2 class on the strength of 3-1 heats.
Facciotti snared the first MX1 heat holeshot with on his heels Willard, Klatt, Jared Allison, Bobby Kiniry and Teddy Maier.
Willard’s position with the front runners quickly dissolved as he was passed in short order by Klatt, Allison, Kiniry, and Maier, leaving him to finish the heat in seventh.
Ten minutes into the heat Facciotti, making a rare mistake, went down and handed the lead to Klatt on a silver platter.
Kiniry, who was running third at the time, took over second place but found himself looking at a lot of real estate between himself and Klatt.
Meanwhile, Facciotti managed to remount in third place, more than 20 seconds behind Klatt.
Charging hard in a bid to reclaim the lead, Facciotti took over second place from Kiniry just before the halfway point.
Even though he shaved Klatt’s huge lead down to about five seconds by the end of the heat, Facciotti had to settle for runner-up when the checkered flag signalled the end of the race.
Klatt’s and Facciotti’s pace up front was so intense they gapped third place finisher Matt Goerke by about 15 seconds and lapped up to eighth place by the time the heat came to an end.
Goerke, who started around 10th place, shot by Kiniry not long after Facciotti’s pass, leaving Kiniry to defend fourth place until the finish line.
Rounding out the top-five was Goerke’s teammate Maier, who spent most of the heat in and around that position despite a costly get-off.
The second heat holeshot went to PJ Stratton, but with the likes of Klatt, Facciotti, Kiniry, and Maier breathing down his neck he quickly disappeared from the top-five.
Klatt was the first to pass Stratton and once in the lead, the defending champ kept it all the way to the checkered, recording his best heat of the season in the process.
Despite continuous pressure from Facciotti, who followed him past Stratton, Klatt never looked back. He took it all the way to the checkered, scoring his third heat win of the season as well as his first overall.
Before Facciotti could hunt down Klatt, however, he had to dispose of Kiniry.
Once that task was cleared, the gap between Facciotti and Klatt ranged anywhere from half a second to three seconds.
When they crossed the finish line they had lapped all the way to seventh.
As in the first heat Kiniry crossed the finish line in fourth place, this time behind Maier.
Robby Marshall, who finished 13th in heat one, cemented the top-five.