team, Mateo Oliveira.
Semmens laid to rest how
he'd fare on 450s by leading the
first half of the 90-minute, $8000
feature race on his Precision
Concepts/Dunlop/Moose Racing
machine.
However, a technical issue
with his throttle ended his dream
Open Pro debut after the halfway
mark just as Oliveira was closing
in, with the champ admitting, "I
did not want Mason Semmens
beating me, that's for sure. Not
wishing anything bad against
him, but he's just moved up to
the 450cc class, so there's no
shot of that happening [beating
Oliveira]"
Once in the lead, Oliveira
steadily added to it with each
mile. Lynn held strong in second
aboard his Monster Energy/Lava
Propane/Fly Racing CRF450R.
"We made some bike changes
over the summer, and I don't
think it paid off quite as well [as
we expected], so we went back
to 100 percent what we had
before summer, and it seemed to
pay off today," Lynn said.
Pulling into third overall after
his own rough start, 3Bros/Hatch
Racing Husqvarna's Pretscherer
had similarly chased down FMF
RPM Racing KTM's Noah Gor
-
don, who'd led the Pro IIs for
nearly an hour in a breakthrough
ride. Like Oliveira, Pretscherer
was coming off his own victory
at the Hare & Hound National the
week before and found the two
races worlds apart, though still
in the desert.
"Bob [Bell] helped me out
with the pits—we did a two-
pit [strategy], so I was able to
VOLUME ISSUE OCTOBER , P43
Sam Pretscherer
came back from a
poor start for his
first Pro II victory.
Ava Silvestri captured her
second win in a row in the
Women's Pro class.
