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JIMMY DECOTIS
250 SX / 10TH
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / KILPATRICK DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> After struggling throughout the 2017 season with lyme disease, Jimmy Decotis has a renewed sense of purpose and motivation for the 2018 racing season. His rst race on the JGR Suzuki in Arlington was a dream start for the rider out of New England, producing the rst podium nish of his supercross career. Decotis kept his con dence and momentum up during the week and came into qualifying at Raymond James Stadium swinging, earning the eighth fastest lap time in the process. The start of the opening heat race went fairly well for the JGR Suzuki of Decotis, secur- ing a decent jump as he snuck into fth position throughout the opening rhythm section. The rst couple of laps produced a tight battle with rookie rider, Sean Cantrell, but Decotis was able to get the upper hand by the third lap as he secured fth position. At that point, he shifted his focus to
the KTM machine of Josh Osby just ahead of him and it only took one lap for the Suzuki rider to make the move. After only a couple of minutes, Decotis worked his way into fourth place and at- tempted to stay within the tire tracks of Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Austin Forkner ahead of him, but he began to feel some serious pressure from his former teammate, Jeremy Martin, instead. The two of them were wheel-to-wheel during the closing stages of the heat race, but Decotis was able to withstand the attack and maintain fth position, beating the Geico Honda rider to the nish line by three tenths of a second. In the main event, Decotis was able to turn a mediocre start into a decent starting position due to some crafty maneuvering in the rst corner. The New Englander placed himself in the thick of the battle for the top ten through the opening rhythm section, but a mistake by another rider forced him to drop his JGR Suzuki and he hit the deck in the middle of a bowl turn. The crash moved Decotis back to the bottom of the eld and left him with a lot of work to do, but he remounted his bike in second-to-last position and pressed onward. He rode like a man on a mission throughout the opening stages of the race, charging back to fteenth place by only the fth lap. The track began to deteriorate and the riders became more dif cult to pass, but Decotis kept his head down and moved closer and closer to the top ten with each passing lap. As the checkered ag approached, the Suzuki rider sat in eleventh position with the KTM of Anthony Rodriguez just ahead of him. He made a last ditch effort to salvage a top ten nish in the nal stages of the race and made the pass stick, nishing the main event in tenth place. It’s not the best result for the JGR Suzuki rider following his rst ever career podium, but the rippa out of the northeast did the best with the hand he was dealt and still maintains fth position in the championship heading to Atlanta.
62 GRITMOTO • FEBRUARY 25, 2018