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The real Justin Barcia finally showed up. Everybody including Barcia has been scratching their heads
wondering when we would see the #51 back to the front of the field, its been that long. 3-4 moto scores
have been his best results of the season and we have just hit the midway point of the series. The good news is that Justin actually tied for 3rd overall in points at Red Bud, the bad news is that Broc Tickle had a better 2nd moto finish, putting himself on the podium at the end of the day. In the first 450 race of the day Barcia just missed the holeshot by a hair to Bogle, but got into the lead by the second corner. It didn’t take long for points leader Ken Roczen to get by but Barcia held tough for 2nd for the first 13 minutes of the race before making a small mistake handing over the runner up position to the #3 Kawasaki rider of Eli Tomac, and settled for third. Moto 2 was underway and BamBam Barcia started just outside of the top 5 in 7th. It took the #51 rider 15 minutes to get into 4th by early leader Bogle and he started to set sail after Tickle for the podium. Although 30 minutes +2 laps on a 450 machine is absolutely gnarly, I am sure Barcia wished he had more time as he was steadily gaining on the #20 Soar-
ing Eagle Suzuki rider and if he had a few more laps he may have had his first podium overall of the year. 4th overall was a huge
improvement and he will take all of the positives heading into round 7.
words/JOSHARMSTRONG
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