VOLUME 56 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 17, 2019 P125
switch, I was not able to handle that pres-
sure well, or switch that over in my mindset
as well as I would have liked.
I found myself, I think in fifth, going into
the second half of the last lap. I had got-
ten such bad arm-pump and pretty much
caved under pressure. Creating it in my
own mind, not really anything else. I got
passed and I was also kinda fumbling at the
same time, sped up, got going and at that
point the arm-pump went away completely
and I just went wide open and pretty
much blacked out. I didn't see what
happened going into the final turn or
anything, I just knew there were rid-
ers ahead of me and I just went for it.
I obviously crashed off the finish line when
I bee-lined it to the corner of the tires. And in
bee-lining it, if you watch the finish, obviously
I could have just cruised in. Because my
teammate had pulled over for me.
In hindsight, it's like, I didn't want to win
that way, but it was an awkward situation. I
don't think the team wanted to win that way
either. Alfredo probably didn't really want to
do what he did. But if there were any team
tactics going into it, then we should have
[discussed] it before, and we shouldn't
have done team tactics at the final turn, you
know? If you're going to play team tactics,
then be tactical! And say, 'Alfredo, stay be-
hind [Colton].' That wasn't discussed.
We raced and that's how it went down.
For me, that was a bummer. Well, it wasn't
a bummer; it was just bittersweet. I had a
good season. We all battled really hard and
I don't want to take anything away from my
competitors at all. You live and you learn
and you move on. You can't change it and
you can't control what other people do. I
raced as hard as I could and that's how it
went. It is what it is.
You faced a pretty severe backlash
on social media, but you stayed com-
pletely quiet through all that. Talk about
what that was like.
Obviously people are going to blame the
one who came out on top. The one who
got the benefit of the situation is going to
be the one with the most backlash, and
that is to be expected, right? Well, he got
something and this guy didn't. Well, I didn't
Haaker leads
the way at round
two of the FIM
SuperEnduro
World
Championship
in Germany.
