with the goal of bringing more
technical and virgin sections
to the race. After listening to
Pro-class winner Wasson's po-
dium speech, he accomplished
exactly that. "It was probably 65
percent virgin trails, really rocky,"
he said. "You really had to be on
your toes the whole time!"
As far as his race, "Not the
best start off the bomb," he
said, "but I was able to make a
couple quick passes that put me
up into fifth, and then I passed
Zane and followed Preston all
the way to the pits. I had a super
quick pit and I was able to sneak
past Preston when he was get-
ting gas.
"I was running second and
could start to see more and more
dust, so I knew I was getting
closer to Dalton [Shirey] and
that the course was going to
get more technical, and that's
my strong suit. So, I just kept
pushing harder and harder riding
smooth, and then Dalton ended
up having a little mishap where
he broke his footpeg off, so I was
able to sneak by him and then
basically just put on a charge
to the finish line. I rode a super
smooth race, couldn't really be
happier with everything! The
team did a solid job!"
Runner-up Shirey, said, "Half-
way through the second loop
there was this rocky uphill, and I
was kind of just bouncing around
trying to make my way up to the
top, and I got bounced toward
this rock and it just clobbered my
footpeg. At first it was bent back
for a moment, so I still had a peg
but then about another mile I hit
a whoop and my footpeg busted
all the way off. I tried to put my
foot on the frame, but it just kept
slipping off.
"I kept thinking to myself out
there, 'it's all about the champi-
onship at this point.' There were
VOLUME 59 ISSUE 22 JUNE 1, 2022 P33
(Right) Dalton Shirey,
dangling footpeg and all,
was runner-up. (Bottom)
Rachel Stout won
the Women's Pro class.
