VOLUME 56 ISSUE 25 JUNE 25, 2019 P65
14-10 to tie McElrath on points, but he
finished 12th overall on the second-
moto tiebreaker. Brown was the best
finisher on the team, but as of now,
he's not planning to race the rest of
the series, as new rules state he can
score as many as 40 points and keep
his amateur status. He's scheduled
to be racing at Mammoth. And then
there's TLD's other rookie who is
staying in the pro ranks from here
on out, Derek Drake. Drake got the
holeshot in the first 250cc moto and
was a fireball out front, pulling away
from the field over the first couple of
laps before he went down hard in the
sand rollers, bent his bike up, and
ended up dropping out of the moto.
He dropped out of moto two as well.
HEAT INDEX
At the start of the first moto at WW
Ranch, it was 95 degrees Fahrenheit
with 63% humidity, which makes
for a heat index ("feels like") of 116
degrees. So, if anyone is wonder-
ing why these top-tier athletes, who
are on heat-producing machines,
covered from the top of their head to
the bottom of their feet in riding gear,
were dropping like flies, that's why.
Briefly...
Tomac started outside the top
20, but found his way up to 10th
by the fourth lap, then just could
never mount much of a charge
on the field. Behind Tomac came
Rocky Mountain ATV-MC KTM's
Blake Baggett, then Sustain-
able Oil Field Services Honda
privateer Freddy Noren and Dean
Ferris.
Tomac and his team made
changes to his motorcycle before
the second moto and then Tomac
grabbed a rare (for him) holeshot
and was never seriously chal-
lenged. At various points in the
moto, different racers pulled
within sight of Tomac only to drop
back again. First, it was Anderson
who made a charge before fading
to eventually finish fourth in the
Florida heat, and then it was Mus-
quin who made a charge, then
also faded to finish third. Osborne
came through in the treacher-
ous conditions to snatch second
place about five seconds behind
Tomac, and then came Musquin,
Anderson, Webb, Barcia, Ferris,
Noren, Baggett and then Roczen,
who faded badly in the last half of
the race. Roczen is still battling a
mystery illness, and the heat did
him no favors, as he ran as high
as fifth in the moto before finish-
ing 10th.
