Page 86 - ISSUE 40

DEAN WILSON
450 SX / 13TH
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / ECKERT DESIGN / WILSON
>> Earning a ride on the revamped Husqvarna team after the first four rounds, Dean Wilson has continued to improve through out the 2017 supercross season. Consistently a top-fifteen finisher, Wilson comes off his second best race of the year, an 8th last weekend in Toronto, and looked to do damage in Daytona. In his heat race, Wilson came out in 6th in the start, after being hidden within the main group. Having a few hiccups, by lap two, Dean found himself all the way back to 10th before attempting his stride forward. On lap three, a mistake from Kyle Chisolm allowed Dean into 9th where he and Jake Weimer started to battle for the top ten position. With Weimer getting by Dean, it wasn’t until the last lap that Wilson mustered the speed to get by the #12, which led to another pass around Mike Alessi a few turns later. The moves earned Dean 8th for the finish, and an unlucky spot in Semi number one. Unfortunately, the #15 was pinched off the start and shuffled back, deep in the pack. Starting lap two, Wilson was outside the top ten in 12th, but the Scotland-born rider wasn’t satisfied. The Husqvarna bike began to push forward, knocking off Tyler Enticknap to finish lap two, and got around the #75 of Schmidt thereafter. Continuing the assault, Wilson pushed onward to get around Chisolm for 7th by the finish of lap three and was hounding the older Enticknap, Adam, for 6th. With less than two to go, Wilson’s unwavering effort
got him around the #722 over the course of a couple turns. Now only having one lap
to work with and one spot to gain, Wilson railed the outsides of the Dayton track to just make it inside of Tedder, in 5th, during the final few turns. The finish earned a ticket
him a ticket to the main but in that start, Wilson didn’t get the needed jump. Dean was buried back residing in 18th to start lap two. During the first half of the race, Wilson shuffled through some positions only to find his way back into 18th. It wasn’t until the races halfway point that he made his way back by a struggling Marvin Musquin. On
the same lap, Dean made a strong move to pass Broc Tickle and Vince Friese in one swoop, giving him 15th for the second half of the race. Hitting a wall, it took five laps of work for Wilson to finally get around Weimer for 14th. In the final five laps, with the field spread to it’s limits, Wilson could only muster one more spot for 13th, getting around Malcolm Stewart by the checkers. The result was Dean’s worst since the opening round in Anaheim but if Wilson’s capable of anything, it’s a bounce back performance next weekend in Indy.
86 GRITMOTO • MARCH 12, 2017