Page 50 - GRIT-80

BLAKE BAGGETT
450 MX / 7TH
IMAGE / LANG WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Many expected Blake Baggett to come into the 2018 outdoor nationals on re after argu- ably his best season of Supercross on a 450 and also after a fanatic outdoor championship title pursuit last year that saw him win a few races. However, we have yet to see that Blake Baggett through three rounds of the series. He struggled a bit at the rst two rounds but some of that wasn’t to the detriment of his speed. He had minor crashes and mechanical issues that hurt him. At round three in Colorado where his title run last year really picked up momentum, he showed ashes of that 2017 speed there but couldn’t fully grasp it. He’d go 3-3 for third overall, his best nish of the season thus far, but didn’t really get to challenge for the win. He looked forward to High Point where he has always been very fast. Baggett looked spectacular in the morning qualifying practice sessions. The southern California product was on rails as he secured the fastest lap time of the class by one full second over Eli Tomac who has won all six of the motos so far. Baggett looked to have used the off week to his advantage and looked ready to emerge as a true title threat. Many were eager to see if Baggett could give Tomac
a run for his money in the motos, but those thoughts went out the window one turn into the race. Baggett got involved in the massive rst turn pileup to begin moto one. He would have to start the race from virtually last place after he picked himself back up out of the dirt. He then sliced through the eld at an incredibly fast rate. By lap four, he had already worked up to TENTH place. He was truly a man on a mission and by the midway point, he had just passed his teammate, Benny Bloss, for fth. It was quite the display from Baggett, but he would have a long way to go if he wanted to pass Justin Hill for fourth. Give him credit for trying, Baggett cut the distance down by a large margin but simply ran out of time to seriously challenge him for the spot. He’d nish fth place for the moto which is spectacular considering his early race predicament. In moto two, people were ready to see Baggett come back with a vengeance, but misfortune struck him yet again. This time he went down in the rst set of corners on lap one and started totally buried once again. He clawed to twenty-sixth by the end of lap one
and then passed a whopping eleven riders on lap two to get to fteenth. He made a handful of moves in the following laps to position himself in tenth by lap ve. At the halfway point, he found himself in eighth trying to pass Bloss. He would do so on the following lap to take over seventh but was too far back and probably a little fatigued to make a full rush at the riders ahead. Coming from nearly last both motos had to be tiring and frustrating for him. He’d end up nishing seventh to make it 5-7 moto scores for sixth overall. He has to be so frustrated that he wasn’t able to even sniff the front of the pack in the motos after such a stellar practice performance.
50 GRITMOTO • JUNE 17, 2018