Page 118 - Issue_39

GANNON AUDETTE
250 SX / 16TH
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / WILSON
>> Gannon Audette has had a wildly up and down past two seasons. The quiet, humble rider from the frigid state of Minnesota, has ranged from podi- ums to DNQs (did not qualifies) and factory fill in rides and privateer efforts during the past twelve months. He rode on three separate teams last year so clearly consistency on the track would be tough to achieve. However, this season Audette is back on his original team from last year, Kissimmee Motorsports/Legends and Heroes Kawasaki, and he has finished fourteenth and sixteenth at the first two rounds of the series. He aimed to keep some of that consistency going north of the border in Toronto with an eighteenth fastest qualifying effort.
He lined up for his heat race with the sole intention to qualify straight through to the main event and he would do just that. It was a bit harder than Audette would have liked as he started in eighth place but bobbled on the second lap and dropped back to thirteenth. He had his work cut out for him to climb back to a transfer spot but he slingshotted right back up to tenth a lap later. He then shadowed Tony Archer for the final spot before making the move with two laps to go and he would hold the spot to the checkered flag.
Audette came into the main event looking for a top fifteen performance but his bad start did not help his cause. He rounded the opening lap buried in seventeenth. He made the best of the situation and quickly jumped up to fif- teenth but that would be as high as he would go. A few laps in, Jesse Went- land would pass him back to sixteenth where he would be for the remainder of the race. It would mark his second sixteenth place finish on the year just slightly off where he wants to be.
118 GRITMOTO • MARCH 5, 2017