cost you the entire event," said
Smage. "Saturday's sections
were on the easy side with the
exception of a couple of ob-
stacles, though Sunday's event
was a bit harder. All of my points
came from just losing my focus.
After you clean an entire loop, it
puts stress on you because you
know you can't do any better,
only worse. It's a bit frustrating
and the pressure gets intense
when you do come to a hard
obstacle."
GasGas North America's Dan-
iel Blanc-Gonnet and Scorpa
USA's Karl Davis Jr. traded
second- and third-place finishes
over the two days of competi-
tion, with Blanc-Gonnet getting
the bridesmaid slot on Saturday
and Davis taking the honors on
Sunday.
Blanc-Gonnet turned in per-
haps his best performance of
the season on Saturday, finish-
ing just 12 points behind Smage
and 26 points better than Davis.
"I really fought hard all day to
keep from taking points," said
Blanc-Gonnet. "There were only
a few sections that were really
tough so I knew I needed to pay
VOL. 55 ISSUE 24 JUNE 19, 2018 P41