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SHANE MCELRATH
250 MX / 1ST
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> After a great 2016 outdoor national campaign, Shane McElrath has struggled to nd that same success since then. The long tenured Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM rider in both Supercross and outdoor motocross has been ham- pered by poor luck and frustration. In Supercross, he started off 2017 and 2018 great with victories but would not be able to sustain it throughout the series albeit freak mechanical issues or bad starts. This outdoor season, that struggle continued when he failed to nish better than eleventh overall at either of the rst two rounds. He did not lose faith and continued to plug away and trust his program and that led to an eighth at round three and a sixth at round four. He was showing that quick raw speed and endurance he has been lacking and he carried that momentum and progress into round ve, his hometown race at Muddy Creek. McElrath was overjoyed to be back racing at Muddy Creek where he came so close to winning his rst career and moto overall two seasons ago. He loves the fans there and always seems to nd a little extra juice to challenge for the victories. His morning started off great when he set the second fastest lap time of the class in qualifying practice. He looked the part and was more than ready to attack the race
track once the gate dropped for the two motos that lay ahead. Moto one began with McElrath jumping out to a solid start and crossing the nish line for the green ag in fth position. He was in a nice spot and did a great job manag- ing the chaos and jostling of positions around him. He dug in and passed RJ Hampshire for fourth on lap three and then went after rookie Justin Cooper. McElrath brought the heat quickly and it looked like he was a safe bet to pass the Yamaha rider, but Cooper responded and McElrath fell off just a bit. Then mid moto, Hampshire made another
little run at McElrath forcing McElrath to once again turn up the heat and he started inching back up towards Cooper. Eventually McElrath broke off a little bit from Hampshire and he solely focused on Cooper. McElrath threw everything he had at him but just could not get close enough. He would nish right behind him in third, picking up that extra spot because of a crash from Alex Martin late in the moto. It was his best moto nish this year and he looked good going into the second moto. Moto two did not begin very well for McElrath. He came out of the rst turn outside of the top ten with some serious work to do. He grabbed the green ag in ninth and hopped into eighth on the following lap but on lap three, he bobbled and fell backwards to tenth. He was going the wrong way and wanted none of it. He realized he needed to get moving forward and managed to pass up to seventh by the end of lap ve. This was impressive for him because he typically doesn’t pass riders quickly early in races which has been one of his weaknesses, but not today. He lingered in seventh for a while after that, but he had done a good job of working himself into that position. At the halfway point, he really turned it on. He started logging aggressively fast laps and started charging into the top ve.
He picked off McAdoo and Smith in successive laps and then set his sights on points leader Aaron Plessinger who was not too far ahead. At this point of the race, McElrath started to realize that he was in play for the overall victory. This clearly motivated him even more. He ran down Plessinger and passed him with four laps to go and then passed Chase Sexton for third with just three laps to go. He saw his teammate Alex Martin remount his machine ahead of him and smelled blood in the water, he wanted one more pass. McElrath charged hard on the nal lap and snatched away second place with just two turns to go. It was a brilliant charge from the hometown rider and he did more than enough to earn himself his rst overall victory with his 3-2 moto scores doing so in dramatic fashion. McElrath was elated on the podium and we can only imagine that this performance will fuel him for the rest of the season.
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GRITMOTO • JUNE 24, 2018