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JEREMY MARTIN
250 SX / 4TH
IMAGE / KILPATRICK WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Jeremy Martin is hottest man in Supercross heading into this weekend’s race in Foxboro. The Geico Honda rider known for his outdoor motocross prowess has been nding his rhythm here in the 250SX East Coast Championship. He has won the last two events and hasn’t nished worse than second overall since way back on March 3 in Atlanta. He is doing everything he can to claw back into strong championship contention but his rough start to the season haunts him. He began the year with two fths and a twelfth and that set him way back considering how consistent the two riders ahead of him, Zach Osborne and Jordon Smith, have been. Luckily for Martin, he isn’t in the game to concede to anybody so despite being sixteen points behind after his victory last weekend in Minnesota, he looks to nish the series strong and do everything in his power to make things dif cult for the points leader, Osborne.
Martin found his groove early and often in the morning qualifying practice sessions. The Millville, Minnesota native was setting a blistering pace. He notched the pole position by nearly an entire second and a half over Osborne. He has simply taken his racing to another level the past few weeks and it was more of the same in Foxboro.
When the gate dropped in his heat race, Martin made sure he got to the rst turn rst. He rounded that corner and the opening lap in rst place and he vowed to never look back. He steadily pulled away from second place rider, Anthony Rodriguez, and the rest of the eld. He locked up the win and continued to carry the momentum he’s built up over the course of the past few weeks into the main event.
Martin could not replicate his earlier holeshot in the main, but he was still in a decent position head- ing into turn two. He was around the top ve when disaster struck; He got bumped by another rider and sent off the track and into a mud pit between the two rhythm lanes. It took him quite a long time to remount so when he nally returned to the race, he was a distant last place. With nothing to lose, Martin went on a ballistic offensive. He started turning some of the fastest laps of the race on his journey forward. He was passing riders like they were sitting still. He moved up to eleventh by the midway point, but he was far from satis ed. He began to catch some of the leaders, guys in the top ve, by over ve seconds per lap. He was simply on another level when he caught and passed Sean Cantrell for fourth on the second to last lap. Next in line was Kyle Peters but he was a full straight- away ahead. This didn’t keep Martin from laying down a heater to try and catch him, but he would fall just short of making the pass. Still, the fourth place was a tremendous effort after coming from so far back. The one down side is that he now sits twenty-three points behind Osborne in the championship points standings with one round to go.
36 GRITMOTO • APRIL 22, 2018