After a wakeup call at round
one, Hoeft revamped his ap-
proach to the series. No one
questioned his Supercross-bred
speed, but that didn't carry him
through a long off-road race. This
time, he led for just over half the
race aboard his Blud Lubricants/
Mom & Dad/Fast House-backed
FC 450 until he tucked the front
end, allowing both Martinez and
Oliveira to speed past.
Those two seemed to be pac-
ing off Hoeft, biding their time,
as Martinez explained: "As we've
seen the last two [rounds], Jus-
tin's got some speed. I kind of
just waited and I saw Justin make
some mistakes. We pitted and
after that I got him."
But Martinez still had Oliveira
glued to the back fender of his
Monster Energy/Skechers/Fly
Racing CRF450RX.
"I tried to get away, but Dante
just stuck right in there," Marti-
nez lamented. "It came down to
the last lap. I [got stuck behind]
a lapper going into the second
Pro section (an extremely narrow
downhill canyon)."
That allowed Oliveira to get
even closer, though Oliveira
considered himself faster in the
technical going there, and when
another lapper fell in front of
them on the truck track, it forced
Martinez to back off while FMF
KTM Factory Off-road Racing
Team's Oliveira saw an open-
ing and immediately swept past
both.
There wasn't enough time for
Martinez to set up a retaliatory
pass and Oliveira raced to the
finish first aboard his Red Bull/
Motorex/Thor 450 XC-F, beating
Martinez by a bike-length.
"These guys were on it—they
weren't making it easy on me!"
Oliveira exclaimed. "I've got to
give it up to the whole Red Bull/
FMF KTM team. We did a lot
of work last week with our new
suspension guy and with Timmy
[Weigand], the new [team] man-
ager.
"It's still early in the year, but
I'm feeling good."
Hoeft hit the finish 41 seconds
VOLUME 59 ISSUE 10 MARCH 8, 2022 P51
Mateo Oliveira now has
three in a row in Pro II,
while Australian Jack
Simpson, once again, was
forced to settle for second.
Kai Aiello returned to the
Pro II podium with his
third place.
