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MARVIN MUSQUIN
450 MX / 2ND
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / TILLS
>> No one has been able to touch the French rider Marvin Musquin for the past month. He
is the man with all the momentum in the 450 series and he has been doing his best to keep things interesting in the championship chase. Musquin has won six straight motos and three straight overall victories at Millville, Washougal and Unadilla. He has done so convincingly and made things look easy aboard his Factory Red Bull KTM. Unfortunately for him, Tomac still has a healthy points lead of thirty-one points over him heading into the last two rounds but Musquin remains determined to fight it out to the end.
Musquin kicked off the day in stellar fashion completely dominating the deep, saturated Budds Creek course. He threw down the fastest lap time of the qualifying sessions and looked more than ready to do battle come race time.
Moto one began with Musquin getting a decent start in seventh place. He was positioned at the tail end of a five-rider duel between he, Baggett, Peick, Bisceglia, and Seely. Those riders provided the fans at the track and at home a wildly entertaining battle as they all seemed to make mistakes and pass each other numerous times. The one person not enjoying it was Mus- quin as it was slowing his advance to the front. He slowly climbed his way through the battles and finally cleared all of it by passing Seely for third just after the halfway point. Soon after
that he put down a charge passing Martin Davalos with ease with five laps remaining. He then set his sights on Justin Bogle who had about a six second lead. Musquin weaved in and out
of lapped traffic determined to catch up to the RCH Yoshimura rider but simply ran out of time and would finish less than a second behind. He was bummed he did not get the win but with Tomac finishing a handful of spots behind, he still earned valuable points.
The second moto saw Musquin suffer another average start this time coming around in eighth. Once again he struggled to make moves early and actually got shuffled back to ninth by Coo- per Webb. He managed to hop back into eighth the next lap by passing Bisceglia but he was still mired up back there for a few laps. After finally battling through Webb and Seely, he got into sixth and set his sights on Weston Peick who he would pass at the halfway point. The next lap he would pass Dean Wilson for fourth but that would be as far as he’d go with the top three too far ahead. He would go 2-4 on the day for second overall. Not the results he’d become ac- customed too with his win streak now broken, but as a consolation he did still manage to make up one championship point on Tomac. Down thirty points heading into the finale, anything can happen.
10 GRITMOTO • AUGUST 20, 2017