VOL. 54 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 22, 2017 P63
attack from Plessinger and Nich-
ols, and all of a sudden Ciancia-
rulo caught fire, chasing down
McElrath then making the pass
with a handful of laps left.
His 1-2 score nabbed him his
first-ever overall win outdoors.
"It's an unbelievable emotion
for me," Cianciarulo said. "This
season has been up-and-down.
I've had good moments and
bad moments, and I've been
consistent, but just haven't got-
ten that win. It just seems like
every weekend, the pressure
builds and builds, and it's got to
be this weekend, and then it's
got to be this weekend. I think
that was holding me back for a
track. Win, lose or draw, when
I leave here, I'm going to empty
the tank out there on the track
and we'll see how it goes..."
It's a good thing he had
something in the tank for moto
two. In the early laps Cianciarulo
had to fight his way into the top
five, sitting fourth after lap one,
while McElrath led Osborne and
Martin.
Cianciarulo wasn't being pa-
tient, he just had nothing for the
lead group, but halfway through
the race, Martin made a mistake
and went down, handing third
to Cianciarulo. At almost the
exact same moment, Osborne
took the lead from McElrath and
began to pull away. Cianciarulo
sat alone in third for a while, but
late in the moto, he came under
Energy Pro Circuit Ka-
wasaki's Adam Ciancia-
rulo. The lone ranger of
the PC squad (winner
of two of the last three
nationals, Joey Savatgy,
crashed out in prac-
tice) Cianciarulo had
never won a single moto
before, much less an
overall.
In moto one, he recti-
fied one of those two,
going wire-to-wire to win
the moto over Martin
and his teammate RJ
Hampshire.
"This is probably the
most rewarding win
of my career," Cian-
ciarulo said. "I've won
supercross races, and
of course amateur stuff, but
outdoors has come hard for me.
I mean, even in 2013, my rookie
debut here, I think I went 14-16
or something for 15th overall.
I've had to work at it. I've been
down, and I've had my moments.
It's been difficult, but the whole
team stuck behind me, and it
feels really, really good to get
this win."
But Cianciarulo still knew he
had another moto to go in order
to get the win he was after.
"I mean, that's the goal," Cian-
ciarulo said. "I don't want to take
away anything from this moto
win, of course, because it came
really high for me, but I feel like I
have a lot left in the tank for the
second moto, and I'm certainly
going to leave it all out on the
A third-place at Budds Creek
marked Shane McElrath's first Pro
Motocross podium.
