Despite what the results sheet says, Red Bull KTM’s rookie standout Max Vohland is taking away plenty of positives and confidence into round two of the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross season after running up front in both moto’s at Fox Raceway.

While many were uncertain where Vohland would fall in a quite stacked 250MX class, the young rookie grabbed the holeshot in the opening moto of the year and led for over half the race before bike troubles put an end to his run.

Not discouraged, Vohland came back out in the second moto and ran near the front again. After an incident with RJ Hampshire saw them both hit the ground, he remounted and charged to seventh, leaving him 13th overall on the day.

“Overall, today went really good,” Vohland explained. “I got a holeshot in the first moto and ended up leading for 23 minutes, which was awesome.

“You learn a lot and gain a lot of confidence believing you can do it when you’re actually doing it! For my first National as a rookie, I think I performed really well today and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season now.”

Coming into the season, Vohland laid out his expectations and was confident in his ability to run inside the top 10, aiming for a top five finish, which he proved capable of doing at round one.

“Got in a little bit more of an extra off-season than everyone else,” Vohland said ahead of the season. “So that helped out a lot, of course, being a rookie. Got the bike set up really good and I really like the track.

“Pretty much going to take it every race at a time, a top-five would be a great result for me the first race. That’s kind of the goal, if we could get there, that’d be the dream goal, besides that just top 10.”

Although on paper the goal wasn’t quite achieved, it’s clear that Vohland will be competitive through the season. He’ll get another chance to line up this Saturday as the series heads to its annual stop at Thunder Valley in Colorado.