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Jordon Smith entered Las Vegas eager to get back racing and ready to cap off a great season. He jumped out to a quick start in practice coming out with the seventh fastest lap time of both coasts. He looked poised and ready to throw down but then the rain came pouring down after practice. It
completely changed the track and his strategy going into the heats.
Smith who has been a quick starter all year got mixed up in a massive first turn pile up and got stuck deep in the field. In unfamiliar territory back in sixteenth after lap one, Smith had his work cut out for him if he wanted to transfer straight through. The track was just a big mess and the rain picked up again making matters worse. At the halfway point he had only worked up to fourteenth but people were going down left and right. It was basically a free for all out there and he weaseled his way from eleventh all the way up into eighth on the final lap to get into the main event. It was a clutch final lap and set him up for the main. The new combined east/ west main event began with Smith suffering another unusually poor start coming out in tenth place. The race was packed full of the best riders in each division but that didn’t stop him from charging forward. The MTF rider looked good in the mud bog and clawed into seventh place halfway through the shortened twelve-lap race. He looked to continue moving forward but he pushed it too hard and ended up going down and being forced to exit the race. He ultimately finished twenty-first. Not the result he particularly wanted to end the season but his performance early in the race was impressive nonetheless and we can only expect him to come back even better for 2017.
words/SETHHARNISHFEGER
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