Page 14 - ISSUE_54

DEAN WILSON
450 MX / 3RD
IMAGE / KILPATRICK WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / TILLS
>> What a whirlwind of a year it has been for Dean Wilson. Starting the year as a full blown privateer heading to the Supercrosses out of a box van with his dad, to a top five rider with the Factory Rockstar Energy Husqvarna team. His results have been hard to predict here in the outdoors but he has finished in the top ten overall at every round and in the top five at half of them. After his worst finish of the year last weekend at Red Bud with a ninth, he was hungry to get back out on the track at Southwick and redeem himself.
Wilson struggled a bit in practice only qualifying in twelfth position. He had a hard time adjust- ing to the rolling sand but he would make the proper adjustments and prepare for a war in moto number one.
The first moto began with Wilson getting a decent start rounding the first lap in seventh position. However, just a few moments later he would go down and slide all the way back to thirteenth place. His prime start had been taken away from him and now he’d have to charge through the sand from behind. His run to the front began slowly as he only moved into tenth by the halfway point but the race was far from over. In the later laps of the race, Wilson’s excellent fitness began to show as he maintained fast lap times and started moving forward at an accel- erated rate. He got by the Swede Fredrik Noren and then went after Martin Davalos. He picked Davalos off a few laps later along with Weston Peick. This catapulted him to seventh but he would pick up one more spot on the final lap because Justin Barcia would run out of gas while running fourth. So, Wilson would finish a solid sixth while coming from behind.
The second moto started better for Wilson as he rounded the opening lap in fifth place. He battled his way passed his teammate Davalos the following lap to hop into fourth. He kept pace of the top three riders and tried to not let them get too far ahead. Near the halfway point, Webb interrupted Wilson’s race by bumping him back to fifth position. Wilson stayed locked in and hunkered down there and got fourth back when Marvin Musquin would go down hard. He con- tinued clocking good laps and it paid off when Webb went down late in the moto and he was there to take advantage. Wilson moved into third and took it all the way to the finish. It would be his first ever moto podium on a 450 and overall podium in a long six years. It was an emotional triumph for Wilson as he reminisced on all the tough times leading up to that moment on the podium. He’ll carry the momentum into the one weekend break.
14 GRITMOTO • JULY 9, 2017