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JUSTIN BRAYTON
450 SX / A-1
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / LANNAN DESIGN / WILSON
>> Justin Brayton endured many changes when the off-season began just a few months ago. Justin made the switch to Honda and flew over- seas to compete in the Australian Supercross series. His performance “down under” was more than impressive as he was able to win the championship. Brayton came back home with confidence and made
the transition to Motoconcepts Honda where he was ready to keep his momentum going into Anaheim 1. Justin started off his day at the sea- son opener very calm and collected and looked comfortable in practice. When the racing began, Justin got off to a mid pack start in 450 Heat 1. He was doing his best to stay clean and avoid the carnage in the stacked Heat race. He was running in 10th place from the start all the way to the last lap where he was able to make up one position on teammate Mike Alessi. Justin would go to the Semi-qualifier where he would get an ex- cellent start. He secured 3rd place quickly with some aggressive riding in just the second corner. The riders around him started to shuffle positions as they were hanging on for dear life going through the rough sand sec- tion. Brayton came out in 4th place and was doing everything he could
to dodge the roost from his teammate in front of him. With a minute left on the clock, Brayton started to challenge Vince Friese for the position. Justin triple doubled after the sand, while his teammate double, double, singled, which allowed Justin to pull up right along side him in the next rhythm section. The pass attempt backfired as it allowed Weston Peick to go inside of Justin now pushing him back to 5th. Justin decided to play it cool and would take the 5th place. For the Main, he got off to a mid pack start and knew he had his work cut out for him if he wanted to improve. He was running 14th place early on and trying to stay clear of any chaos around him. Unfortunately, mistakes were inevitable and Justin was in survival mode by the halfway point. He would finish a respectable 15th place on the night.
104 GRITMOTO • JANUARY 9, 2017