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CHRISTIAN CRAIG
250 SX / MN.
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / COPELAND DESIGN / WILSON
>> The season opener couldn’t have a better location for former Minnesota native, Christian Craig. The home state rider came into 2017 looking to pick up where he left off last season where he battled throughout the series with eventual champion Cooper Webb and tonight’s race winner Joey Savatgy. Coming into his second full season with the Geico Honda team, Craig has all of the tools to be a real threat in this championship. He has spent the off season training in Florida with fellow 250 east contender Adam Cianciarulo and looks to be bringing a high level of speed into the opening round. Considering that he came off the couch
to start riding again for last year’s championship and was a contender, with a full head of steam, he could be the man this season. Craig opened the day by quali- fying third in the morning’s timed segment and looked very comfortable on the track early on. He would carry that momentum over into the heat race. Christian ripped an excellent start and moved into the lead quickly in the race. He would go on to turn a 49.827 in the heat which was the fastest time logged in that heat. By the end of the race Christian had stretched his lead to 8.2 seconds over the runner up and looked primed to make a good showing in the main event securing a great gate pick by winning the heat. After a successful start to his night Craig would have his work cut out for him in the main event. A bad start would bury
him on the first lap. He would show up in 12h to start the race, 10.7 seconds off the leader. Something happened to Craig after he moved into 11th causing him to drop into 17th with 10 minutes plus 2 laps remaining. The nightmarish main ended with finishing 12th, which is most likely 11 positions behind where he saw himself finishing. He showed that his fitness was where it needs to be as he was making moves late in the main event and didn’t give up at any point in the race. When you work as hard as most of the guys do and come into the year with the expectations he has you can understand why tonight’s finish is a failure for Craig. It’s not the end of the season for him but to achieve his goal of contending for the title and possibly winning it, he must completely avoid another night like tonight. He will start the title chase in a hole, but I wouldn’t count him out just yet.
110 GRITMOTO • FEBRUARY 19, 2017