Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1088768
SUPERCROSS ROUND 9 / MARCH 2, 2019 MERCEDES-BENZ STADIUM / ATLANTA, GEORGIA P70 MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS iii My Own Race: 4 BLAKE BAGGETT 2ND 450SX "It was tough to pass," said Blake Baggett (Rocky Mountain ATV-MC KTM) of his second-place finish. "You could make a run on somebody, and I think Marv [Musquin] and Coop [Webb] were making runs on each other, and I could see that in front of me, and then the same thing with me and Marv, and once Marv made that mistake, I did the same thing with Coop, but when they have that horseshoe sand section over the tunnel, I'm definitely, hands-down, not for it. It's supercross. It should be steep obstacles and no sand. It was just tough. You could make a run on somebody and then you're just covered, you can't see where you're going, and it turns into one line. The whoops are bad enough when it gets that goat trail down it, but I tried to do the best I could, and once I got into second, I couldn't do anything to take a chance because Marv was going to capitalize on it, and at the same time I was trying to make a run on Coop, but it is what it is... Second." 25 MARVIN MUSQUIN 3RD 450SX "Obviously, I'm really happy about the riding tonight, but following the leader like that, it was tough," said Marvin Musquin. "I mean, I knew I could make a pass, but it was definitely tough. You come to the sand section and you have to follow, and the whoops were the same thing; I didn't want to chance it and go to the right side, and then, I made a mistake [in the sand] and Blake [Baggett] got around me, and I was in the same position. I was trying my best, and I was catching him, and losing, and catching him... It was definitely a tough track. Everybody made some mistakes, and definitely the gap was going back and forth. Even if Blake was catching Cooper [Webb], it was hard to make a pass, and for me it was hard to make a pass, so I definitely stayed in that position, and then I made a mistake and went off the main line, and Blake got me in the sand, and that's basically all that happened in the main. That was it." 94 KEN ROCZEN 4TH 450SX "Going into Atlanta, I was feeling a lot better than I have the past two weeks from the flu," said Ken Roczen (Honda HRC). "We came into the race with a little different suspension setting, so I was excited to try that but the track was one of the toughest. It was really soft and rutted so it was risky trying something new in those conditions, when you don't know 100 percent what the bike is go- ing to do. In the main event, I was on the far outside and grabbed a good start. I had to jump a different rhythm than most the other guys in the first lane and got passed, so I went straight back to sixth. I moved into fifth then got stuck behind [Aaron] Plessinger for a while. I spent way too much time trying to get around him, then when I did after he went down, I couldn't really do anything from there so I just rode a solid race and got fourth." 7 AARON PLESSINGER 5TH 450SX Aaron Plessinger (Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha) enjoyed his career-best fifth-place finish in the 450SX class. "Atlanta Supercross was pretty awesome!" Plessinger said. "I was struggling in the first practices a little bit, but we made a little shock change and it was definitely for the better. I qualified 13th and went into the heat race with a pretty good gate pick. I came out pretty bad on the start, but I made it work and was able to come back to fifth. Then the main event, I lined up in a pretty good spot and yanked a really good start. I was running fourth for a while and crashed right in the sand, then got up in fifth and stayed there."