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BLAKE BAGGETT
450 SX / 9TH
IMAGE / KILPATRICK WORDS / WARNER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> After a hard get off in the nal race in Atlanta last weekend many thought Blake Baggett would be incapable of racing the weekend at Daytona. A bummer for El Chupacabra as the Daytona track would allow him to showcase his outdoors skills on the most grueling, outdoor style Supercross track on the circuit. Well, wrist injury or not Blake wasn’t missing the race. Qualifying seventh Blake didn’t appear much out of his norm. We have seen him cover a
lot of the map this season when it comes to qualifying times and race nishes. The seventh spot, however, would still clock him at over two seconds slower than pole position Eli Tomac. However, Blake is the kind of rider we see a lot of times who doesn’t qualify the greatest, but is able to do very well at adapting to the track as night wears on and nish better than where he originally quali ed. Daytona would not be the case for Blake though. Coming around turn one in ninth in his Heat wasn’t the start he was looking for. Blake found himself up to seventh after lap one and would click off a couple more the opening laps. Whether he was in pain of not due to his wrist injury sustained last week he clicked off laps until Webb and Tomac went down and he was able to capitalize and nish third in Heat Two. In the Main Event, Baggett would be another victim of the inside starting gates. A poor jump, followed by a tight one- hundred-eighty-degree turn shuf ed Blake back to a fteenth place start to Main. Baggett crossed the nish line on lap one in thirteenth, then sliced and diced his way through the pack in the early laps, passing a rider a lap up until lap ve where he found himself in ninth. He would remain there, unable to get around his teammate Bloss he would end up being passed by Musquin. Finally, after passing Bloss points leader Jason Anderson would spend the next nine laps attempting to pass Blake nally getting it done with two laps to go forcing him to a ninth-place nish. Given another week to for his wrist injury from last week to heal up Blake might not be back where he was by next weekend, but don’t count him out. Blake’s one of the toughest competitors and will] be ghting through it weekly to return the podium before long.
50 GRITMOTO • MARCH 11, 2018