WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 53 ISSUE 11 MARCH 22, 2016 P65
II GRANT'S NEW GIG
Detroit marked Josh Grant's first
race as a substitute for Wil Hahn
at the Monster Energy Kawasaki
team. Grant will be racing with
Big Green for the remainder of
the 2016 season, including the
two U.S. GPs in North Carolina
and at Glen Helen (the latter of
which Grant will probably win).
It's sort of full-circle for Grant.
In 2015, Grant raced for TwoTwo
Motorsports alongside team
owner Chad Reed on Kawasa-
kis. After his outstanding per-
formance at the season-ending
Glen Helen U.S. GP, where he
won a moto and finished second
overall, Grant entertained a few
offers from teams to race the
GPs, but the money offered was
so small that he figured he could
make more money just making
main events in 450cc super-
cross.
Grant made a judgment call
to buy a Suzuki and get it ready
to go racing in hopes of earning
a fill-in ride should a top racer
become injured. Injuries are a
major part of any supercross
series, and with James Stewart,
Blake Baggett, Ken Roczen and
Broc Tickle racing RM-Z450s,
it seemed like a good bike to be
familiar with. The fact that Grant
had raced Hondas, Yamahas
and Kawasakis already at the
top level made the choice even
easier.
It seemed like a good bet
when RCH Suzuki's Broc Tickle
came up injured, but the team
gave that ride to Jake Weimer,
who had been racing a Team
Tedder Kawasaki up until that
time. So Grant was forced to
show his hand and show up to a
race on his privateer Suzuki. He
raced in Daytona and finished
seventh, two spots behind the
top Suzuki (Ken Roczen), and
Monster Energy Kawasaki gave
him a call.
Grant began testing the fac-
tory Kawasaki on the Monday
prior to Detroit, but despite that,
Grant qualified sixth fastest,
then nearly qualified for the main
event out of his heat race. In
the main, he went down early,
but was battling with Weimer for
13th place when Weimer lost the
front end exiting a turn and took
Grant down with him. (This was
the crash that ended up getting
Dungey docked for jumping on a
red-cross flag.)
Still, Grant recovered for 12th,
and that result is very likely to
get much better as he gets more
time on the factory Kawasaki. CN
Josh Grant
made his
debut on his
new team at
Detroit.
