THOMPSON REPEATS AS KING OF ADELANTO
L
ast year, Blayne Thompson
managed to hold off a per-
sistent Dalton Shirey to kick the
year off with a huge victory at the
Adelanto Grand Prix. After lead-
ing the points through the first
few rounds, he eventually settled
for second in points at the end of
2016.
This year, the Fasthouse
Honda rider proved to be on a
completely different level from his
competition as he ran away with
the AMA Big 6 West Coast Grand
Prix (WCGP) Series feature race,
January 14-15, at the increasingly
popular season kickoff event,
hosted by the So Cal Motorcycle
Club at Adelanto Stadium. Last
year's WCGP Pro II champ Trevor
Stewart made his Pro-class de-
but for Johnny Campbell Racing
(JCR) Honda an impressive one
to claim the runner-up spot while
Purvines DA8 Racing Yamaha's
Sutherlin took third.
"This is my backyard, right be-
hind my house so I had to make
sure I kept [the title]," Thompson
said. He also picked up $1900 of
the $7500 total purse.
This year's WCGP ended up
being run in two parts due to
the race being red-flagged after
three laps due to medics treating
JCR Honda's Preston Campbell,
who'd suffered a broken femur,
scapula and ribs.
AMA rules say if a race is red-
flagged with less than half the
laps run, it must be restarted,
but by the time the track was
cleared, there wasn't enough
daylight left so officials decided
to run the race first thing on Sun-
day morning. Riders would start
in the order they were running at
the end of lap two and would be
sent off at five-second intervals
for a race of one hour plus a
lap, making the combined times
IN
THE
WIND
P38
Blayne Thompson
dominated the WCGP
to retain his King of
Adelanto crown.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
MARK
KARIYA
