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BRADLEY TAFT
250 SX / SD
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / WILSON
>> Bradley Taft was the less touted rookie during the 2016 cam- paign as his emergence was overshadowed by Benny Bloss’ 450 success and the phenom Austin Forkner. Taft enjoyed a very suc- cessful amateur career winning a plethora of titles throughout the years including at his final races as an amateur. He showed the world what he’s capable when he debuted at the last three rounds of the outdoor series last year. He would get good starts and shake it up with the crème de la crème for most the motos before floundering in the latter stages due to fatigue that all rookies have a hard time dealing with. This being his first supercross season he wanted to make a big splash but failed to do so with a thirteenth at A1. He aimed to do much better here at San Diego.
Taft looked great in practice nailing the ninth fastest lap time and appeared to be ready to dice it up during the night show. The CycleTrader/Rock River Yamaha rider got out to a steady seventh place start and worked his way up to fifth over the course of the short heat race. When the gate dropped for the main event, Taft would find himself buried way back in the field. He emerged from lap one in sixteenth place. He quickly moved into fourteenth after just a lap but would then run into problems eventually forcing him into going a lap down on lap four. Such a bummer of a night for the Missouri product as he just circulated back in twenty first position. Look for redemption from the kid next weekend back at Anaheim.
142 GRITMOTO • JANUARY 15, 2017