P120
CN
III EMPIRE OF DIRT
BY STEVE COX
W
hen it comes to
punditry and bench-
racing, we always think
we know what's going to hap-
pen before it does, don't we?
"This guy is going to dominate,
obviously, because last year/
week he..." But before 2017,
how many people picked Zach
Osborne to win both the super-
cross and outdoor champion-
ships? Almost nobody. Maybe
not even Zach Osborne.
The truth is there are a lot of
guys who can win, but in the
end, only a few actually do.
Coming into the 2017 Super-
cross Series, most people likely
would've picked Joey Savatgy
to win his coast, since he lost to
Cooper Webb by a single point
in 2016 and Webb had moved
up to the 450cc class. Zach Os-
borne, to that point, had never
even won a supercross main
event. Others likely picked Jer-
emy Martin, in his premiere sea-
son with the Geico Honda team.
And still others likely picked
Martin's former teammate, Aaron
Plessinger, who finished second
to Malcolm Stewart in the East
in 2016. Or even Martin Davalos
who won two races in 2016.
But who picked Zach Os-
borne or Justin Hill to win a
250cc SX title in 2017?
Probably nobody. If I was
asked about either of them, I'd
have probably said something
along the lines of, "Well, if either
of them gets a win early and
can get on a roll, they can win a
title..." But I definitely wouldn't
have predicted that either of
them would do that.
Osborne in particular was
the weirdest case of the entire
LONG TIME COMING
