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AARON PLESSINGER
250 SX / 4TH
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Aaron Plessinger has pieced together a very successful season. Not too many people saw it coming from the rider hailing from southern Ohio. He had won races in the past, but his inconsis- tency was not deemed championship material. He has a very Eli Tomac-esque style; He will at out dominate a race where no one can come close to matching his speed and then at the next race he will look to be in a funk and make all kinds of mistakes. This season, we have certainly seen more of those dominating performances than poor ones. He has four race wins on the season but has only nished on the podium once other than those for victories. It’s de nitely still feast or famine for Plessinger, but he succeeded immensely at doing damage control at the races where he was not so hot. Those excellent damage control efforts are why he holds a comfortable seventeen-point lead with two races to go.
Fresh off a big win in the mud at Seattle, Plessinger picked up where left off with a nice showing in the morning qualifying sessions. He managed to maneuver the slick, rocky Salt Lake City terrain en route to notching the second quickest lap time. He was about half a second off the quickest time set by Adam Cianciarulo.
Plessinger kicked off the day of racing in Utah with a great start in his heat race. He started second right behind Geico Honda’s Chase Sexton but quickly captured the lead. He never looked back the rest of the race. He pulled away from the rest of the pack with ease and looked like the points leader that he is. He was hoping the clean, smooth laps he was able to log would carry right into the main. Plessinger repeated his nice start from the heat race in the main event. He was able to dance his way around Cianciarulo and McElrath to assume the second-place position by the end of the open- ing lap. He had Cianciarulo, who is second in points, behind him which was exactly what he wanted in order to maintain his points lead. A few laps into the race, Plessinger began to show that he wasn’t content with just maintaining his points lead, he wanted to extend it with a victory. He began reeling in the leader, Joey Savatgy, and wanted to take the lead. However, Cianciarulo and McElrath were coming right along with him. They began putting pressure on Plessinger and Cianciarulo actually made the pass on lap six along with McElrath. Things happened quickly for Plessinger and his mentality visibly changed. He seemed to settle into a more reasonable pace and wasn’t riding on
the edge. During the second half of the race, he began to nd his groove again and began reeling in Savatgy for third but could not get close enough to challenge for a pass. He’d settle with the fourth- place nish. He may have lost a few points to Cianciarulo, but he still holds a healthy thirteen-point lead heading into Las Vegas. Barring catastrophe, it is likely that he will be crowned champion one week from now.
36 GRITMOTO • APRIL 29, 2018