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MARVIN MUSQUIN
450 MX / 3RD
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Marvin Musquin entered the weekend off on cloud nine. He had capitalized on all of Eli Tomac’s mistakes at our last round at Red Bud and stole the points lead away from him in the blink of an eye. That came just one week after Musquin nally beat out Tomac to win his rst overall of the season at Southwick. Things have really begun to materialize for the French rider and his hard work was starting to pay off. His consistency throughout the season has helped him get to this point and he has really made this a true championship battle. He was excited for the gate drops at Millville, so he could show off his new red plates and potentially extend his new points lead.Musquin looked great aboard his Factory Red Bull KTM in the morning qualifying practice sessions. He managed to put down the second fastest lap time of the day and looked like he could de nitely go out and win some motos later in the afternoon. When the gate nally dropped for 450 moto one, it saw Musquin get narrowly edged out by Ken Roczen for the holeshot. He positioned himself in second and tried getting around his fellow European rider. Musquin did his best but just seemed a tad bit out of rhythm to start the moto and lost a bit of ground to him. This allowed Tomac to swoop in and take the third-place position away. Seeing lost championship points ahead of him seemed to ignite him a bit and he tried picking up the pace. He stayed with Tomac for a few laps before crashing on lap ve. Crashes of any kind are uncharacteristic for Musquin, but he was able to remount only losing one spot to Blake Baggett. Musquin would spend the rest of the moto in a very lonely fourth place position as he was far back from Baggett in third but also had a nice cushion on the rest of the eld. The fourth-place nish for the moto was de nitely not what he wanted but he had on more moto on the day to make up for it. Musquin narrowly got edged out for the holeshot again in moto two but this time it was Justin Bogle doing the edging. Musquin didn’t let this deter him and he was able to quickly make the pass and lead the eld around lap one. He had Roczen right in tow but was able to pull away inch by inch. His gap stabilized around ve to six seconds at its peak midway through the moto. Even with Roczen and Tomac both charg- ing behind in the latter half of the moto, Musquin was able to continue to hold the same gap. They simply couldn’t catch him. It looked like Musquin might come away with the moto win but Tomac began an insane charge with four laps left. Musquin’s lead was slashed drastically and somehow in just two laps, Tomac was able to pass him and quickly pull away. This had to be de ating for Musquin who had rode such a fast, smooth race to that point. He would nish the moto in second but would lose the points lead. His 4-2 moto scores earned him a podium in third overall, but he was disappointed that he now sits seven points behind Tomac.
14 GRITMOTO • JULY 22, 2018