VOL. 54 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 17, 2017 P59
at the start of the first of three
main events, and then took the
"Joker Lane" (faster this year, for
the first time) on the first lap he
could. Musquin forgot to take it.
"I totally forgot about that joker
lane," Musquin said. "And the
way it was, before the finish line,
we're so used to going straight
and hitting that double. You've
got to go right to take the joker
lane. I mean, we never race with
the joker lane. It's only once a
year, so you really have to think
about it, but it looks like Eli re-
ally had it dialed in and he went
right away. He knew what he
was doing. To be honest, I was
going for it. I was behind Eli. I
was pushing hard and I saw him
like going right and I'm like, 'Oh
yeah, that's right. There's the
joker lane.' I just went straight
and hit the finish line."
But it worked out for Musquin,
who put in a heater of a lap on
the next time around and then hit
the joker lane himself, surprising
Tomac out front when he joined
him as they headed out of the
stadium.
Musquin battled his way by
Tomac, and then Tomac made
the first costly error, going down
hard when he got wide on a fast
sweeper, sliding in the mud and
high-siding big-time, hitting the
ground like a ton of bricks. The
team reported that Tomac was
okay, but "just a bit beat up"
were new Honda privateer
Justin Barcia (who won in 2012)
and defending event champ Eli
Tomac, from the Monster Energy
Kawasaki team. The odds of a
repeat, just in pure numbers,
weren't great.
Tomac grabbed the early lead
Cup Class
With Davi Millsaps missing the
MEC with a head injury and
injured elbow, in what would've
been his Monster Energy/ Ya-
malube/ Chaparral Yamaha de-
but, the only two former winners
who could've possibly repeated
Eli Tomac and Musquin went at it early
in the first Cup race. Musquin actually
passed Tomac just before Tomac hit
the deck and called it a night.
