Page 124 - ISSUE_31

JUSTIN STARLING
250 SX / A-1
IMAGE / MPG WORDS / ARMSTRONG DESIGN / WILSON
>> After struggling with the track all day Starling must be pumped to put himself and his sponsors in the first main event of the year. The Slaton/JMR Racing/ Ktm privateer rider could only muster 27th fastest in qualifying today. Lets face it if you are outside of the top 20 in qualifying it doesn’t look good for you to be in the main event, and Justin is a main event guy. He quickly proved the theory wrong by pass- ing a handful of riders on lap one of his heat race showing that you just need to qualify healthy enough to make it to the night program and that racing is what matters. A healthy 7th place finish in his heat race set Justin with 14th gate pick for the big show. It isn’t to rare to see either a privateer get a good start or an outside gate pick to get a good start but it is relatively rare to see a combination of both but when the gate dropped it was game time and Starling rounded out turn one in 4th! It may not have lasted as long as Justin would have hoped but it was an achievement in its own right. @justin- starling was able to hold onto a top 10 position for much of the race until all of a sudden he was pushed all the way back to 18th in just a few short laps. Although Starling was faced with some adversity he continued to push and made a few passes in the final stages of the race.
124 GRITMOTO • JANUARY 9, 2017