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McElrath qualified 1 tenth off his teammate, Mitchell Oldenburg, to put himself just inside the top 10 and give himself a decent gate pick. He wasn’t able to use that to his advantage as he got a dreadful
start and found himself on the verge of slipping back out of the top 20. McElrath came across the line in 17th place and rode there for a lap until coming under fire from Pro Circuit’s Adam Cianciarulo. After briefly being bumped back to 18th position, McElrath followed AC through on Tonus and he attempted to stick with the Pro Circuit Kawasaki and move forward. On the fifth lap, McElrath made a mistake that caused him to lose about 15 seconds on the competition. He fell back to 23rd place behind Jackson Richardson and immediately had to restart his push toward the top 10. After losing so much time to the guys running near the front of the field and dealing with some adverse conditions, McElrath was able to work his way back to an 18th place finish and salvage a couple points for the championship. Things got off to a better start in the second moto, McElrath pulled a 7th place start
and found himself in a heated battle with Aaron Plessinger right off the bat. The two of them traded inside and outside lines, playing a bit of cat and mouse with one another for a lap. McElrath took smart lines and showed good race craft to stifle the attack of the Star Racing Yamaha rider, but he wasn’t able to hold him off through the rollers section. He didn’t get the drive that he needed to from the inside before the rollers and Plessinger skipped past him with the advantage of momentum. Shortly after he was relegated back to 8th position, he had some sort of problem which caused him to pull off. It was a disappointing outing for McElrath, but look out for him to rebound and start gaining back points come Glen Helen next weekend.
words/LAKEKILPATRICK
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