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PHIL NICOLETTI
450 MX / 9TH
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Phil Nicoletti has certainly lived up to his nickname “Fill-in Phil” so far here in the 2018 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross series. We are seven rounds into the season and he was al- ready been on two ll-in rides. He began the season with JGR Suzuki and did quite well for them. He rode with the team at the rst three rounds racking up a ninth and a pair of eighths. Since then, he has ridden with the Factory Rockstar Husqvarna team producing similar results. He seems to perform well on anything you give him. At our last round at Red Bud, Nicoletti tied his career best nish with a very impressive fth overall. He ran up front all day and didn’t back down from anyone. He would look to continue that mo- mentum into Millville. Nicoletti struggled a bit in the morning qualifying practice sessions. He just couldn’t get a nice ow down, but he is never really one to worry or care about the practice sessions. He is much more of a racer, so he shrugged off the thirteenth fastest time and geared up for the motos. Nicoletti got off to a good start in the rst moto of the day. He managed to hold down seventh place as they crossed the green ag. He passed Weston Peick for sixth place on lap two and then held that spot on lockdown
for the next several laps. Peick wanted him back but Nicoletti was doing well holding
his own. He managed to thwart every Peick pass attempt until Peick nally got back
by on lap seven. Nicoletti would then soon get pressure from Cooper Webb around the midway point of the moto. Once again, he refused to give up the spot and fought back with everything he had. He was hammering the track and continuously beat Webb to the spot but just when it looked like he had seventh in the bag, he slipped up and bobbled on the nal lap allowing Webb to squeak by. This had to bum out Nicoletti after holding him off the whole moto, but he still had another moto to respond. Nicoletti got a similar start in moto two. This time he started in eighth position and like in the rst moto, picked up one spot on the second lap. He had pressure from Benny Bloss right away and could only hold him off for two laps before the young gun managed to get by. Nicoletti would do a nice job maintaining his spot for another several laps but things started changing at the halfway point. Both Webb and Justin Hill started pressuring him. Hill passed him rst and Nicoletti managed to hold out a little longer with Webb, but both would eventually pass him in the latter stages of the race. This pushed Nicoletti back to tenth where he would stop the bleeding and ultimately nish. His 8-10 moto scores were solid and got him a ninth overall. He would like to have some better starts to help get him back closer to that top ve.
30 GRITMOTO • JULY 22, 2018