VOL. 54 ISSUE 13 APRIL 4, 2017 P47
an eight-foot drop off of a massive slab in section
seven, easily the most intimidating section of the
event.
Sherco USA's Andrew Putt and GasGas USA's
Alex Niederer finished out the first lap with two
points each, while Montesa USA's Daniel Blanc-
Gonnet and Sherco USA's Sam Fastle each
dropped three points.
Lap two was disastrous for Roper when the
Arizona rider dropped a two in the tricky second
section, and another in section 10 when he lost the
front wheel on a loose rock. Meanwhile, Freixa,
Smage, Putt and Blanc-Gonnet all aced the second
lap, leaving Freixa in the provisional lead by a single
point over Smage with one lap to go. Putt sat in
third place with two points, with Roper and Blanc-
Gonnet tied for fourth with three points each.
Another clean card on lap three sealed the vic-
tory for Freixa. Smage finished second with one
point, while Putt also cleaned the final lap to grab
the final step of the podium with a total of three
points.
Sunday's sections were slightly more technical,
but the event still boiled down to just one section,
at least for the top three.
Section 10 featured an uphill off-camber ap-
proach to a root, which turned out to be particularly
tricky for Freixa. Smage had a spectacular ride on
lap one, stopping just short of the root and then
ever so lightly hopping over the root as the crowd
held it's breath before proceeding to the rest of the
section. Freixa, on the other hand, overshot the
camber, and had to take a dab in order to get his
front wheel back on line.
Quinn Wentzel was the last to ride section 10 on
lap one and the Scorpa USA rider hit it perfectly for
the only other clean on the lap.
Smage managed to clean section 10 on all three
tries, while Putt and Roper were next best, each
with a one and two cleans.
Freixa managed a clean on the second lap, but
turned in a messy ride on his third attempt when he
dragged his foot for a three.
Once Smage got through the tricky 10th section
point in the two-day event. However on Sun-
day, Smage rebounded with an impressive
victory, while Freixa ended the day third behind
Sherco USA's Andrew Putt. Smage's 2-1 per-
formance trumped Freixa's 1-3 finish, giving
Smage the provisional lead in the 2017 stand-
ings, 55 points to 51.
The opening lap gave an indication of just
how tight Saturday's event was going to be,
with both Freixa and factory GasGas rider Bry-
an Roper turning in clean cards. Meanwhile,
Smage turned in a one-point card—the result
of a stabilizing dab taken when he landed from
Marc Freixa came
out swinging on
opening day.
