NEW BERLIN, New York: Levi Kitchen rebounded from a modest start that placed him seventh in the running order on Lap 1 to win Moto 1 in the Unadilla National.
Kitchen made short work of several riders early and moved into fourth on Lap 2 when the leader Casey Cochran crashed and Gavin Betts squandered a great start.
Kitchen raced forward, taking second from Chance Hymas on Lap 6 and the lead from Cole Davies just past the midway point.
Davies was riding sore after crashing toward the end of the second qualification session and it appeared he would lose significant points while he was in third for multiple laps. A crash by Hymas moved up one position and salvaged a couple of points.
The battle shifted to second as Hymas overcame an incident that dropped him to second. On Lap 2, holeshot winner and early leader Cochran crashed directly ahead of Hymas. He made the pass for second just past the midway point. He crashed with eight minutes on the clock and fell back to fourth.
Carson Mumford was comfortably in fourth when Hymas crashed and moved him up a position. Mumford was second in qualification and coming off back-to-back top-fives. Mumford closed in on Davies to reduce the gap to two seconds with a lap remaining. Davies found the speed he needed to stretch that gap again.
Ryder DiFrancesco rounded out the top five.
Brodie Connolly held onto a top-five position for the first half of the race before slipping to eighth at the checkered flag.
Julien Beaumer crashed on Lap 1 and fell outside the points. He charged through the field and was up to 13th on Lap 3 and 10th on Lap 5.