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ALEX MARTIN
250 MX / 7TH
IMAGE / KILPATRICK WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Alex Martin has enjoyed a successful Lucas Oil Pro Motocross season aboard his Troy Lee Designs Red Bull KTM. Martin has been in the title ght ever since the opening rounds of the series and has nished in and around the podium seemingly at every race. He has led a ton of laps but surprisingly has not won a moto. He has come very close on more than one occasion but just hasn’t been able to seal the deal. Small mistakes and crashes have held him back from reaching that next level of success. He has a comfortable cushion sitting in second place in
the points standings but unfortunately, he is sitting way behind the current points leader Aaron Plessinger. After a forgettable round at Washougal, Martin is basically going to need to win out and hope a lot of misfortune heads Plessinger’s way if he wants a realistic shot at the title. Martin looked good in the morning qualifying practice sessions. He was solid and smooth and was able to notch the sixth fastest lap time of the class. In session two when the track was muddier, he still managed to put in a solid lap time, so he appeared to be ready to conquer the elements in the motos. Martin suffered a bad start to get his day of racing going. He rounded lap one in fteenth but managed to jump all the way up to tenth by lap three. Just when it seemed like he had an impressive charge going, he had his share of problems and got bumped back to twelfth. Martin would get mired up back there and struggle to make passes as quickly as he did in the opening laps. The track was tough, and the riders were very spread out. He kept his head down and did his best to get things going but he would only end up nishing the moto in tenth.
Moto two was not too much better as this time he came around in twelfth. He did make a few moves forward again, getting into tenth on lap two and then passing the hometown kid, Justin Cooper, for ninth on lap four. The following lap he would be gifted another position thanks to
a mistake from Chase Sexton. This put him up to eighth and he was slowly but surely moving forward at a nice pace. However, on lap nine, Cooper would end up tracking him back down and retaking eighth place. Martin remained steadfast and retook the spot on the next lap by passing a downed Jordon Smith. And then after riding behind Forkner for much of the moto, Martin nally passed him with two laps to go. This gave him seventh where he would nish the race. His 10-7 moto scores netted him seventh overall on the day. Not the result he needed nor wanted. He
sits seventy-nine points behind Plessinger in the points standings. Barring an absolute miracle, Martin will be mathematically eliminated next weekend at Budds Creek.
26 GRITMOTO • AUGUST 12, 2018