Page 56 - Issue_39

JUSTIN BARCIA
450 SX / 9TH
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / MATTINGLY DESIGN / WILSON
>> The Great White North, home to some of the world’s most fierce land- scapes, climate conditions, and animals in which roam the territory. Bears, wolves, moose, you name it, the strongest really do survive; its nature in its rarest form, if you are overtaken by another individual, or outside element, you are forgotten as the pack moves forward. It’s the same theory in Monster Energy Supercross; if you simply aren’t at the top of the food chain, you are long forgotten about with each passing event. Justin Barcia knows this all too well, being on both ends of the telephone line, gleaming with prestige at one moment, and biting his nails with his livelihood of expertise on a fringe. He carries on, however, regardless of his circumstance at that particular moment in time, as he planned to do under the bright lights of Toronto. Once the gate was packed, the tire tread dug into the mother earth, a slight rocking back and forth the machine create comfort, the path of the straight and narrow ap- peared dim; very dim. Especially with the hungriest of competitors on the line next to him, but he would brush it to the wayside, and propel off the launch pad. As the field began to sort themselves out, he emerged twelfth after the ruckus of events in the opening moments. Barcia had to rekindle some of his momentum of the past, and this was a solid start. Never the one to shy away from banging bars, his laptimes were dipping into the low 59’s; he was on pace of those around him and passing into the top ten quickly. The rev limiter, bouncing off the walls of the Rogers Centre, had his mechanic shaking his head the entire time; knowing an engine replacement was soon to follow. But his job is to gain every position possible, and he was damn well doing so. He was hitting the sand section a gear tall, clutching the Suzuki for all she had; hounding Dean Wilson his Japanese frame spraying flames into the exhaust of the Husqvarna. It would be too little too late however, and he would bring home a respectable ninth place finish.
56 GRITMOTO • MARCH 5, 2017