Arlington’s second round of the 250SX East category in Monster Energy Supercross saw Chase Sexton first win of the season. In this edition of Debrief, the Geico Honda rider recounts his triumph with questions from the post-race press conference.

Congratulations. You told us a year ago that you were happy to get the championship, but you didn’t like the way it happened by only getting one win. How important was it for you to get that win tonight?

For sure – last year was nice to obviously win, but it wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen. This year, Shane [McElrath] won the first race, and I couldn’t let that happen again. It was really important to get a good result tonight and finish on the top step. I got three good starts – the first race a little chaotic – but I made the best of it and came back to second. In the second race, I knew I had to go out and win the thing. It turned my night around, and the third main was good – I just rode behind Shane the whole race – the lappers were pretty chaotic. I was really happy with my bike tonight – the whoops were good, and I feel that was my strong point all day. I’m really excited to have the red-plate, and obviously we’ll be sharing it at the next race.

RJ [Hampshire] said you were even, do you agree?

Yeah, we came together in outdoors at Millville, and I knew he wasn’t happy about it. That corner after the finish line really left the door open when you’re trying to hit the next section, but if you don’t cover the inside, you’ll have what happened to me. Obviously, I wasn’t happy about it, but I feel I came through the pack pretty well and made a clean pass. It’s racing, but I came back and got second, putting myself where I needed to be.

In the third race, you looked like you knew you had the overall win and just laid back. If these kinds of events had three points for a win, do you think it would make them more exciting?

I guess it could help, but again, you’ve got to be consistent. I feel like if you do the work in the first two, you can settle [in the last one]. I feel the second main is the most important to put yourself as the main guy – so I think if you do the work in the first two, the third one comes easier. That’s where I put myself, and I was just trying to stay smart with all the lappers.

You’re going to be moving up the 450SX class soon. When you’re done racing, do you start looking at the 450 class guys getting up some mental reps on the guys you’ll be up against next year?

For me, I watch all their practices, and I make sure I stay and watch their main event because you can learn a lot, and I’m going to be racing them next year. I just try to learn from them, look at their lap-times in practice and go off what they’re doing and seeing what they’re doing on the track. It helps me to just watch them ride, and I think I learn a lot from it.