VOL. 52 ISSUE 26 JUNE 30, 2015 P77
After finishing third in the
opening moto behind a runaway
winner Ryan Dungey, on the Red
Bull KTM Factory Edition, and
Pourcel, on the Rockstar Energy
Husqvarna, Barcia kicked things
off after the storm delay by slid-
ing his AutoTrader.com/Toyota/
Yamaha into the lead at the start
of the second moto. Dungey ex-
ited the turn in second, right on
Barcia's rear fender, but when
the KTM rider nose-dived into
Briefly...
One of the surprising rides of the
day was Florida rider Justin Starling
who grabbed the first-moto holeshot
on his Traders Racing Kawasaki and
ran in the top five for the first six laps
of the race. Staring is rumored to be
working on a deal with Pro Circuit for
2016.
Honda HRC's Cole Seely did not
compete at Budds Creek. Earlier in
the week, Seely suffered an injury to
his leg when he fell while practicing.
He rode practice at Budds but was
far from 100 percent and chose to sit
out the day and heal up for the next
race at RedBud.
GEICO Honda rider R.J. Hampshire
had the lead briefly early in the first
moto, but the mud got the best of
him, as he went 15-19 for a 20th-
place overall finish. "Just made a
mistake and went down," Hampshire
said. "I was way back and went down
a couple more times, so that wasn't
good. The second moto, I got a de-
cent start and was running 10th, but
I went down again, and the bike was
overheating from all the mud, so we
just had to cruise in and score some
points. I feel like we had more than
we showed today."
Hampshire's teammate Jordan
Smith moved up to 11th in points after
17-8 moto finishes resulted in an 11th
overall. "That was my first mudder as
a professional, and it was tough," the
rookie Smith said. "It was kind of the
same story this week as every week:
Had a good second moto and not
such a good first moto. I'm riding well
in both, but I just need to calm down
a little bit in the first moto the first few
laps and get through there so I can
a soft spot on the face of the
following jump, Barcia had just
the opening he needed to take
control of the race. And from
there, Barcia was like a kid mak-
ing mud pies in the rain, enjoy-
ing every second and appearing
to have no thoughts whatsoever
about easing up.
By the end of the race,
Barcia had stretched his lead
to over 23 seconds ahead of a
fierce battle between Pourcel
The first "mudder" of the year
took place at Budds Creek in
Maryland. New Yorker Justin
Barcia (51) welcomed the wet
and muddy conditions.
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