Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 26 JULY 2, 2013 P69 ES Villopoto turned in a monumental ride in the first moto, coming from near the back of the pack to an eventual fourth by the end of the race, using up valuable energy along the way. Moto two was more to Villopoto's liking, as he led all 18 laps. And when Dungey appeared to be catching him, he simply dialed up more speed and pulled away. "Obviously the second moto was better than the first," said Villopoto. "It was not the start I was looking for in that first moto, I ended up going down in the first turn. And then later on the first lap, I went down again when a couple of bikes came across the track and hit me. I think it was [Ryan] Sipes and someone else came together and their bikes went flying. But I got up and got going and I just put in a hard charge to salvage as many points as I could. I put in a good charge in that first moto and I knew I was riding well. I was able to use some outside lines to make passes, and the front guys weren't that far in front of me at the end of the moto, but I still ended up fourth." Villopoto stuck to his outside lines in moto two and held off a hard-charging Dungey until he finally found his groove and pulled away. "I was making just a few small mistakes at the start of the moto, maybe just missing my lines," said Villopoto. "A few laps in, though, the track got rougher and I ended up dialing in my lines and I was able to pull away." 250 NATIONAL Eli Tomac has been hot and cold all year, winning a moto and then getting a bad start and finishing off the podium in the other. It appeared that Southwick might be more of the same after the GEICO Honda rider took a convincing win in the first moto, only to get caught sleeping on the gate in moto two. This time, however, the Colorado rider was able to overcome his bad start and work from the rear of the pack to an eventual second behind series point leader Ken Roczen to claim his second overall victory of the season with a 1-2 score. "The first moto was great, I got a good start and made passes early on," said Tomac. "I dumped it over in a corner about five laps in, I just ran it in a little hot and stuck the front end. At that point I was wondering if I was really going to blow it, but my bike was running and I got back up and just finished strong. It's great here, because you can just lay into the corners wide open and just kind of float on the bike. I think that's actually what caused my crash, because I was having fun and I just wanted to go faster and faster. When you're in the lead like that and you can make those lines happen then it's fun." Moto two was not as fun for Tomac who was sitting all the way back in 11th at the end of the first lap. "After that first moto, I was Briefly... can do about it. Sometimes all you can do is put a smile on your face and look forward to the next one." After missing the first four rounds with an injury, Hahn is obviously out of the championship hunt but he still has the $15,000 Motorcycle-Superstore.com Holeshot prize to shoot for, which he is currently leading. "I've always taken pride in my starts," Hahn said. "Now that there's a pretty big emphasis on it, I think I'm even more focused. I'm going after that 15 grand." Championship contender (250) Red Bull KTM's Marvin Musquin struggled through the day. The former MX2 World champ got caught up in a first-turn melee and went from 24th to 10th. Musquin got a much better start in moto two and was running as high as second before fading back to ninth. Musquin came into the race with a head cold and said afterward he ran out of energy. BTO-Sports KTM's Andrew Short came pretty close to winning the first 450 moto but couldn't quite hold off Ryan Dungey and had to settle for second. He had high hopes of making the podium going into the second moto but a first-turn fall with Tyla Rattray erased that idea. He did, however, crack the top five with a 2-16. JGRMX/Yamaha's Justin Brayton suffered a hard get-off in the first 450 moto and wobbled off the track and headed back to the pits to regroup. And that he did. continued on next page

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