VOL. 52 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 6, 2015 P43
you're just fighting for position
every lap and you can only worry
about yourself. It's basically the
same as racing in the Lites class,
but it's 20 laps and you're racing
good riders, but you're also rac-
ing good riders in the Lites class,
as well."
As for the more seasoned
rider, Muscle Milk Honda's Trey
Canard, the reality of the long
season and making it through the
hype of Anaheim I, healthy and
with a podium was important.
"I just tried to approach it as
another race," Canard said. "The
only difference is that I'm healthy
and there is momentum, but
sometimes I do better in the situ-
ations where you're kind of the
Briefly...
all day and won his heat race only
to have the wheels fall off during
the main event. He got caught up
in a first-lap tussle and went down
again solo later on. He was credited
with 20
th
place. "Great day that just
didn't finish as we had hoped," said
Tomac. "The GEICO Honda was so
good and the riding was effortless.
It was just some bad racing luck in
the main that cost us a top finish.
Starts are everything and I thought I
was on my way to a holeshot in the
main, but a bike came in from the
outside and pushed a wave of bikes
over. We all fell into place, but there
were a lot of bikes pushing up front
and I ended up crashing. I got back
up and was making up ground, feel-
ing like I could catch up, but I had a
bigger crash two laps later and that
pretty much ended it for me."
BTO Sports/KTM's Andrew Short
had one of the trickest bikes in the
Anaheim pits. His KTM 450 SX-F
Factory Edition was so light that his
team had to actually add weight to
it in order to meet the AMA's weight
limit. They did it by swapping out ax-
les. The bike also featured a WP air
shock and WP air forks.
ANAHEIM 1 NOTES: After nearly
being the fastest qualifier in the 250
class, GEICO Honda's Malcolm
Stewart crashed early in the main
and suffered a wrist injury that pre-
vented him from finishing; the team,
however, says he'll suit up for Phoe-
nix next weekend… For the fifth con-
secutive year, the Anaheim opener
enjoyed a sellout crowd of 45,050.
