Zach Osborne wins the 250SX East championship after a last-lap clash in Vegas
Zach Osborne won the 250SX East championship after the top three riders in the points - including himself - all crashed during the Main Event Saturday night at the Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.
The 250 Main was contested between the Eastern and Western regional riders. The Western Regional championship had already been secured by Justin Hill.
However, the Eastern Regional championship looked to be a three-way fight between Jordon Smith, Zach Osborne and Joey Savatgy, who were all separated by one point. Adam Cianciarulo was still mathematically alive, but he was 14 points back.
At the start of the 250 Main, multiple riders went down in a crash in Turn 1 including championship contender Osborne, whose bike was trapped beneath another rider's. Not much later, however, Savatgy also went down on course, but didn't lose as much time. And then, just moments later, Smith went down too, and appeared to be injured in his incident.
While all this was going on, Cianciarulo was dominating up front while Savatgy - who was the best-placed of the top three riders in the points - was losing positions on the circuit and dropped back to eighth.
At the start of the final lap, Hayden Mellross was in seventh ahead of Savatgy and Osborne. Savatgy was leading the championship by one point, but if Osborne were to get by him, Osborne would win the title.
Savatgy tried to make sure that wouldn't be the case by passing Mellross on the final lap, but Osborne got by Mellross too. Then, Osborne made an aggressive pass on the last lap to get by Savatgy and give himself the championship while Savatgy went down and dropped back down the order to 14th.
Justin Hill and Aaron Plessinger rounded out the podium behind race winner Cianciarulo.
Unofficial 250SX results:
1. Adam Cianciarulo
2. Justin Hill
3. Aaron Plessinger
4. Dylan Ferrandis
5. Mitchell Oldenburg
6. Jimmy Decotis
7. Zach Osborne
8. Hayden Mellross
9. Mitchell Harrison
10. Cameron McAdoo
