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AARON PLESSINGER
250 MX / 1ST
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Coming into this weekend’s race at Washougal, no one in the sport has been as on re as Aaron Plessinger. The series points leader in the 250 class had dominated the previous two rounds going 1-1 at both of them in convincing fashion. He’s been casually running away with a massive points lead over the rest of the eld. Despite some slight inconsistences early in the year, Plessinger has still been far more consistent than anyone else in the eld. His main two competitors, Jeremy Martin and Zach Osborne, exited the series with injuries after some crashes and no one else has been able to step up to give him a real run for his money. Plessinger enters this weekend’s race ready to keep on plugging away and to maintain his massive points lead.
Plessinger has struggled at times in the morning qualifying practice sessions this year but he seemed to gure it out early at Washougal. He ended up clocking in with the fth fastest lap time of the class and looked strong and smooth. He was ready to brave the heat and have some fun in the motos. Plessinger kicked off his day of racing by pulling a decent holeshot. He fought elbow to elbow going up the infamous Horsepower Hill and ended up coming out of the opening lap in seventh place. On
a track that proved hard to pass, Plessinger managed to jump from seventh to fourth in lap two. He passed Mitchell Harrison, Dylan Ferrandis, and Michael Mosiman. He slotted in behind Jordon Smith and brought some pressure. The two riders were also closing in on the two leaders, Joey Savatgy and Austin Forkner. Plessinger pushed the four riders into a tight bundle around the race track and it looked like someone was going to make a move. Plessinger kept it right on the rear wheel of Smith for the entire rst half of the moto. But as the race wore on, Plessinger started losing just a little bit of ground to Smith. He ended up slipping back about two seconds and it stayed that way until the end of the race. The fourth-place nish was a solid performance, but it ended his streak of four straight moto wins.
The second moto started great for Plessinger as he ripped the holeshot. He led the pack up Horse- power Hill but somehow Shane McElrath rocked around the outside and stole the lead. Plessinger tried locking in behind him but McElrath slowly pulled away. This put Plessinger in a relatively lonely second place about six seconds behind by the latter half of the race. When it looked like Plessinger was going to ride to a calm second place nish, Plessinger tipped over allowing his teammate, Ferrandis, to take the spot away. Plessinger rode out the last few laps in third and would nish his day with 4-3 moto scores. Those scores however, were enough to earn him the overall victory on the day. It is rare you see that high of moto scores net an overall win but that could be just another sign that it is just Pless- inger’s year.
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GRITMOTO • JULY 29, 2018