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AARON PLESSINGER
IMAGE/JACKEDWARDS
The sophomore year of Aaron Plessinger’s professional racing career has gone extremely well thus
far. The Ohio native got his first SX win in the beginning of April at the Indy SX, a stones throw away
from his hometown in relation to the remainder of the racing schedule. He kept Malcolm Stewart within reach the entire series and may have won the 250 East title had it not been for a disastrous round in Toronto as well as inconsistent starts throughout the series. He has steadily improved both indoors and outdoors, bagging an overall win at the 2015 Ironman national in Indiana to cap off his rookie season in style. There isn’t much room for improvement in reference to how he ended the nationals last year, but Plessinger still hasn’t been able to show the same speed on the west coast dirt as he has with the east coast stuff. His GNCC experience has granted him a supremely technical skill set as well as some of the best mud riding capabilities in the 250 class, which allowed him to come all the way back from crashing on the first lap (including a stop in the mechanics area) to narrowly missing out on the podium at the last SX round in Las Vegas. His confidence will be soaring coming into Hangtown; he has a championship proven bike, a championship proven training program, and race wins on his resume. If Plessinger can eliminate the intermittent starting issues that bothered him during SX and put together some solid finishes throughout the first couple of rounds on the west coast, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him winning races and battling for the championship. If the series comes down to a dogfight at the last round in Indiana, he’s already proven that to be his territory; Plessinger has won every event that he’s raced in the state during his professional career. Will he be able prove that he can be fast in any conditions and get his first win outside of the state of Indiana when the gate drops this weekend in California?
22 GRITMOTO • MAY.23.16
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