VOLUME 57 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 7, 2020 P61
control. But even they had some signifi-
cant errors in the 450SX main.
Barcia had the early lead, but he
handed the lead to Cianciarulo with a
near-crash only a lap after setting his
fastest lap time of the race. Cianciarulo
took over the lead for the next seven
laps until he made an error of his own,
and Barcia was able to capitalize on it to
take the lead back. From there, Barcia
controlled the rest of the race and went
on to win by approximately five and a
half seconds over Cianciarulo, while
Red Bull KTM's defending champ Coo-
per Webb came home third, another
seven seconds behind, after struggling
all day with flu-like symptoms.
"I think it's fair last year that people
thought it was a fluke that I won
this race in the rain," Barcia said. "I
GLAD TO BE BACK
"Anaheim was awesome hon-
estly," said Christian Craig who
recently won his anti-dopping
appeal and was allowed to race
again. "I went into the weekend
just grateful to be there so to
leave with a third is so cool. For
months I've been riding super-
cross but had no idea when I'd
be racing. I assumed it would
be in April, when my suspension
was supposed to end originally.
The trip I took to Switzerland in
December thankfully went my
way and I was able to race A1.
All day on Saturday I felt good.
I qualified third overall and got
second in my heat. The main
was going pretty good for my
first race back. I started around
third and stayed there for a lot of
the race. Dylan [Ferrandis] got
by me eventually and then I rode
pretty tight, keeping me in fourth.
Saturday night I got the call that I
would be bumped up to third for
[Forkner's] mistake. I'm not ex-
tremely pumped on it because I
want to finish in third and actually
stand on the podium."
WEBB DIGS DEEP
The Red Bull KTM team seemed
somewhat astonished by how
well Webb did at Anaheim 1.
Webb spent all day with flu-like
symptoms and was having a
tough time even putting in fast
laps during daytime qualifying.
He qualified 15th, and even with
nausea, he managed to put his
KTM up on the podium. Webb
isn't new to gutsy performances,
though; if you remember, he also
raced the 2016 250SX West
series finale in Las Vegas with a
fractured wrist and eked out that
championship by one point.
INDOCTRINATION
During opening ceremonies,
Blake Baggett took his baby boy
Braeker out onto the track under
the spotlight, perhaps to get his
son ready for Anaheim 1 in 2037.
FORKNER'S PENALTY
The AMA/FIM's reasoning for
docking Austin Forkner two
positions in the Anaheim 1 main
event is sound: They docked him
one position for cutting the track
and another position for pulling
onto the track in front of Dylan
Ferrandis. Race official John
Gallagher said that if Forkner
had cut the track but waited for
Ferrandis to go by, he would've
only been docked one position.
Although Forkner led much of
the race, even a fifth-place was
pretty good for round one when
you consider that he went down
in practice and injured one of
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