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Justin Hill’s year has been up and down and he came into Ironman ready for it to be over. He wanted to throw down and end the season on a high note but he struggled in qualifying practice because of the sloppy, rainy conditions. He would only walk away with the twenty-eighth fastest time but he was
more than ready for the races. Hill’s opening moto was a quiet one. He suffered from a bad start rounding lap one buried in seventeenth place. He wasn’t able to mesh well with the mud and had trouble moving forward. He was stuck in seventeenth for quite some time before passing Albertson and Charboneau late in the race to secure fifteenth for the moto. He was bummed with how it went and knew he needed a much better start in the second moto. Hill did not necessarily get the start he wanted
in the final moto but it was still much better than the first as he got the green flag in ninth place. Despite the better start, Hill fell victim to that early race intensity getting bumped back to eleventh. He is only in his fourth race since returning from a pair of injuries so he is still working on that race pace. However he rebounded well and started clawing back forward once he got into a rhythm. He got back up to ninth with three laps to go when he mounted a charge to get by Alldredge and then Davalos for seventh on the final lap. That little charge to finish seventh at the end of the moto had to have felt pretty good after a rough first moto. Hill will look to carry that little momentum into the offseason and train hard to have a healthy, contending 2017 season.
words/SETHHARNISHFEGER
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