Page 96 - Issue-35

COLE MARTINEZ
250 SX / OKLAND
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / WILSON
>> Cole Martinez has become a bedrock in the 250 West Coast series over the past few years. Always fast and always consistent but he still gets slept on. He’s always lightning fast during qualifying practice and he often is fighting right around that top ten. Keep in mind he is doing all of this while on a privateer effort. He stayed true his routine this weekend in Oakland by throwing down a quick eleventh fastest time in practice and like usual, looked ready to shake it up during the night show.
Martinez suffered a bad start in his heat race but he hopped into ninth by the end of lap one. He kept his trend of moving forward by dicing his way through the field into fifth place four laps into the short six-minute sprint. He put himself in good position and was able to capitalize on McElrath and Decotis crashing late in the race inheriting third place where he would hold on to finish. It was the perfect way to start his evening as he earned himself a rare favorable gate pick heading into the main event.
Unfortunately for the Arizona product, he failed to capitalize on his good gate pick and started buried in the field. However, he clawed up to tenth place just two laps into the race. He put together some consistent laps and eventually picked up one more position by bumping Heath Harrison back to tenth. His trend of moving forward started to round off as he settled into ninth but late in the race the track started making things dif- ficult for him. He made a few costly mistakes in the waning stages and it cost him two positions. Martinez would end up finishing in eleventh place one spot away from the coveted top ten. He will be fired up going to Dal- las next week because he knows he performed well enough to get his second top ten finish of the season.
96 GRITMOTO • FEBRUARY 5, 2017