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MIKE ALESSI
450 SX / 20TH
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / ARMSTRONG DESIGN / WILSON
>> As the 2017 season approached Mike had his deal lined up with the familiar Smartop Motoconcepts team. The team rides Honda machines but Mike opted to stick with his 2016 model instead of the brand new designed 2017. Some found this decision to be questionable but for
Mike it was an easy one. The reason being that Honda had limited parts coming to riders and Alessi’s race bike was already set up and he felt comfortable on the machine he rode last season. Mike hasn’t seemed
to get as many great starts as he has in the past but Mr.Holeshot can easily get one any given weekend. This weekend in Detroit the #800 seemed to struggle with his starts, basically putting Mike in a bad position for the rest of the evening. Although Mike didn’t have the best weekend of racing he still made the highlight reel as he landed on his teammate Vince Freise in the Semi races. It’s not every weekend you see a rider land on another rider off of a triple jump and its certainly doesn’t happen often with teammates. In the Semi race, Mike started around mid pack position and Vince started up front. By lap 3 Mike was in 6th place and Vince was in 5th holding onto the final transfer position. Mike had a good run in the rhythm section leading up to a high speed triple. Alessi tried to scrub the jump and make his way past Friese, Vince may have came into Mikes line a touch but the reason for the incident is that Mike came into the triple with too much speed and over jumped the triple by a few bike lengths. Alessis front tire just grazed the #61 of Friese and punted him off of the track. The pair of riders where able to stay on their machines but Mike inherited the position. Vince tried to make a comeback on Mike but ran out of time. When Alessi crossed the finish line you could see he was not proud of what he did and called his teammate over to apologize. The #800 later went on to a 20th place finish in the main event.
110 GRITMOTO • MARCH 26, 2017