VOL. 55 ISSUE 4 JANUARY 30, 2018 P63
son made it past, Argubright had
to make an unexpectedly long pit
stop to add coolant since he'd
done some bushwhacking and
put a small hole in one radiator.
That allowed Robert and Bur-
son's teammate Axel Pearson to
slip past, though Argubright re-
passed Pearson quickly. (Pear-
son later crashed, injured his
wrist and DNFed after running as
high as third.)
At the finish, Robert took the
checkered flag in two hours, 14
minutes and 24 seconds, Argu-
bright 30 seconds behind with
cal 40-mile second loop crushed
his hopes of adding another
National overall to his resume—
the last one being 2015—and he
had to settle for fourth.
After a pretty good start,
Chidester Transport Racing
Yamaha rider Argubright settled
into second place for most of the
race. "Nick was going insanely
fast," the YZ450FX-mounted
rider said. One of several riders
to get held up at a railroad cross-
ing for a few moments ("It was
only five or 10 seconds—a little,
tiny train," he said) just after Bur-
bright] and I thought I was in the
lead—I started cruising!
"Then I got to the top of one
of those technical hills out there
and some random fan out there
was like, 'He's a minute ahead
of you!'
"I was like, 'Oh crap, I've got
to get another guy!' I was push-
ing really hard to catch up to
him—I was smoked by the time I
got to him! Luckily, we had some
sand washes [after that] I was
able to catch my breath on."
Unfortunately for Burson, sev-
eral crashes on the very techni-
Absent from the
series for the
past few years,
Kendall Norman
returned to action
and a strong third
at the Winter
Classic.
