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JUSTIN BRAYTON
450 SX / A2
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / ECKERT DESIGN / WILSON
>> On a new team for 2017, Brayton hasn’t seemed to be up to race speed through the first two races with his season best being a 15th at the opener. Back in that same building, round three puts twenty more minutes on the table for Brayton to turn around the recent results and gain some momentum before the tour leaves California. As
the gate dropped on heat two, Brayton’s night started with a battle against the two Rocky Mountain ATV/MC riders out of the gate, Justin Brayton came out of the woods in 3rd place, closely behind the #4 of Blake Baggett. Holding on to the back wheel of Baggett for the first lap, Brayton failed to keep pace and started to lose ground on the two KTM’s in front of him. By lap two, the hard-charging Cooper Webb was at Justin’s heals and the #10 had to forget about challenging for the lead as the main goal was to maintain his qualifying spot. The blue #2 proved too much for the Smartop/MotoCon- cepts Honda rider, though, and with Brayton taking the outside before a whoop sec- tion, the pass by Webb also led to Peick, Tomac, Tickle and Grant getting by, pushing Brayton back to 8th within two turns. From there, Brayton took 8th place to the check- ers. Bouncing back for semi #1, Brayton was second to the first turn but with Marvin Musquin taking it too wide, Brayton tucked under and took the lead away. Holding off Marvin for the first few minutes, Justin was unable to maintain the lead and moved back to 2nd with Broc Tickle close in toe. Continuing to fall off the pace, Brayton fell
to Tickle a lap later and dropped to 4th with Dungey getting by before the finish but Justin was still able to hold on to a qualifying position.
As the gate for the main event hit the floor, Brayton struggled which forced him to battle back from 18th. Brayton picked off Nick Schmidt and Tommy Hahn to gain 16th within the first few minutes and followed Pourcel in 15th. The momentum stopped there for Brayton, though, as the proven power of Broc Tickle got by the #10 and pushed Brayton back a position to 17th. Within a few minutes, a scary crash by Ken Roczen allowed Justin back into 16th, a pass on Vince Friese put him into 15th and as time continued to tick, a big mistake by Malcolm Stewart put Brayton up to 14th. Again following Christophe Pourcel, Justin appeared stagnant in 14th. Then, with less than two minutes left, the lethal veteran made a move on the #377 of Pourcel and made the pass stick, holding off the Frenchman to earn 13th by the checkers and a season best. A good sign as the season continues to round four next weekend.
78 GRITMOTO • JANUARY 22, 2017