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PHIL NICOLETTI
450 MX / 7TH
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Phil Nicoletti has enjoyed one of his best Lucas Oil Pro Motocross campaigns of his career and he has done so after switching teams midseason. He began the season aboard a JGR Yoshimura Suzuki but switched to the Factory Rockstar Husqvarna team to ll in for Jason Anderson and Dean Wilson. The switch paid dividends for the Husqvarna squad as Nicoletti would throw down solid results all season long. He captured a fth overall at Red Bud and then went out and nished a career best third overall at Unadilla two weeks ago. He was in contention for the win at points during the motos, so his con dence soared. He had another solid nish last weekend at Budds Creek with a sixth overall, so he heads into the nal round at Ironman with some swagger and momentum. When the rain started pour- ing before the morning qualifying practice, Nicoletti rejoiced. The muddy conditions play right into his hand and was looking forward to producing a performance similar to what he did at Unadilla. Nicoletti would throw down the fth fastest lap time of the class and was more than ready to get after it in the motos. Nicoletti got out to a great start in moto one. He nished the rst lap in third just behind Justin Barcia and Dylan Merriam. He made quick work of Merriam on lap two and set his sights on Barcia. Nicoletti actually started gaining on the leader and would make the pass on him on lap three. It looked like Nicoletti could possibly pull away, but Barcia would have none of it. Nicoletti could not shake his fellow New York native and three laps later, Barcia retaliated and passed Nicoletti back for the lead. Tomac closed up on Nicoletti shortly after this, around the halfway point, and began applying pressure. The points leader kept the hammer down for a few laps and managed to pass Nicoletti on lap nine. Ken Roczen would also nd his way around Nicoletti that lap because Nicoletti would run into his fair share of mistakes. He became unraveled a bit as he slipped back to fourth. With three laps to go, it looked like Nicoletti would hold it down to the end, but Marvin Musquin would pass him with two to go and
then Chad Reed would pass him on the nal lap. Vision problems and a slew of mistakes hurt Nicoletti down the stretch of the moto and he would nish sixth. Nicoletti kicked off moto two with another good start. This time he came around in sixth but passed Tyler Medaglia for fth on lap two. He held that spot down for two laps before Blake Baggett edged him back to sixth. The following lap, Medaglia would pass him back, pushing Nicoletti back to seventh. Things really became unglued on the next lap as Ni- coletti ran into some more issues and fell back to twelfth. He didn’t panic, and he slowly began climbing back forward. He had charged back up to ninth with a few laps to go when he caught up to Tomac and Chad Reed. He would pass both of them with two laps to go and get back up to seventh. He would hold that spot down and nish there. It was an up and down moto for Nicoletti and he would nish seventh overall thanks to his 6-7 moto scores. Some mistakes held him back from better positioning, but it was a solid ending to the season for Filthy Phil.
48 GRITMOTO • AUGUST 26, 2018