Page 78 - Issue43

ANTHONY RODRIGUEZ
250 SX / 10TH
IMAGE / LANGSTON WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / WILSON
>> Anthony Rodriguez has quietly been enjoying another solid 250 East Coast campaign. The rider hailing from Cairo, GA by way of Venezuela has not had the attention grabbing great starts like he had in his first two seasons but he is producing similar results. He seems to have smoothed out his game after some struggles with consistency early in his career. He has been riding smarter and smoother as a result and that has led to only one race finish outside of the top ten so far this season. He has not finished better than the seventh he earned at the series opener so he was looking to try and match or improve on that in St. Louis.
Rodriguez qualified for the night show with a modest showing in the pair of prac- tice sessions. He secured the twelfth fastest time and was prepared for battle come race time. Rodriguez kicked off his heat by starting right in the middle of the field in eleventh position. He had some work to do to get in a comfortable qualifying position so he would do that and then some. He inched to ninth by
lap three and then switched a gear and leap frogged into sixth the following lap. He then passed Scuba Steve Clarke and Gannon Audette during the final laps to hop all the way into fourth. It was great performance to set himself up for the main. Rodriguez’s main event went much different than his heat. He started in the same position, eleventh, but he hovered right around there the entire race. He spent most of his time bouncing between there and tenth but he managed to slide into ninth late in the race. He looked to have it secure as the race was winding down but Cunningham slipped by sending Rodriguez back to finish in the tenth-place position. It marked another top ten for the Venezuelan but he feels he has a lot more to offer than what he showed in that main event.
78 GRITMOTO • APRIL 2, 2017