Page 30 - Issue45

BLAKE BAGGETT
450 SX / 8TH
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / WILSON
>> Blake Baggett is enjoying his best 450 season to date. He seems
to have really began to gel with his BTO Sports KTM machine in the second half of the season. He has shown flashes of brilliance a few times over the course of the year including a podium in Atlanta which happened to be the first podium for his team so it was a special night for everyone involved. He loved that feeling of being back on the box so he has gotten after it trying to make it happen again but he has come up just short finishing in and around the top five including two fourths. He was hoping to return from the Easter Break with a little hop in his step to help his quest to get back to the podium.
Baggett looked solid in qualifying practice coming out of it with the ninth fastest lap time. He looked comfortable and ready to tackle the night show. He got out to a clean start in his heat race starting in the position that matches his number, fourth. He would maintain that final trans-
fer position all the way to the checkers meaning he would be heading straight through to the main event.
Baggett got a great start in the main rounding lap one in fifth. Unfor- tunately, that would be as close as he would get to the front. He got bumped back to sixth on lap two and held it down for a few laps before hopping back up into that fifth position a third of the way into the race. But shortly after, he would make a mistake and bobble back to eighth. A few laps after that first bobble he would do so again dropping further back to tenth. He then realized enough was enough and he managed to put a mini charge together to climb back up to eighth where he would end up finishing. It was a tough main event for Baggett as he suffered a few miscues but he has two more chances to finish the season strong.
30 GRITMOTO • APRIL 23, 2017