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DAVI MILLSAPS
450 SX / 6TH
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / KILPATRICK DESIGN / WILSON
>> Davi Millsaps has showed impressive consistency throughout the entire season on his Rocky Mountain ATV/MC KTM machine. The Florida native came into the season with a lingering injury, but managed to set that aside as he has finished inside the top
ten every race that he’s contested except for last weekend in Daytona. Millsaps has displayed his speed and his starting capabilities throughout the heat races, occasion- ally running up front and leading laps. After his worst finish of the season with a twelfth place in his home state of Florida, the thirteen year veteran was looking to bounce back in the midwest at Lucas Oil Stadium. Millsaps was able to get back to his regular top ten speed as qualifying got underway for the eleventh round of the series, placing himself in ninth position after both timed sessions wrapped up, therefore earning himself a decent gate pick heading into the heat races. Millsaps was able to rip an exceptional start as his knobbies tore through the tacky midwest terrain down the start straight; he found himself in tandem with his teammate, Blake Baggett. The #4 got the better of him throughout the opening rhythm section and took the lead as his own, but Millsaps struck back only one lap later and worked his way into the lead. He attempted to stretch a gap over a pursuing pack of KTMs, but he had no luck and found himself under pressure from Baggett and Marvin Musquin. The Frenchman found his way into second position and took Millsap’s line away before the finish line, forcing him out of the lead. He was able to resist the pressure from his teammate for the remainder of the race and keep Musquin within his reach, eventually crossing the finish line in a close second position. In the main event, Millsaps shot out to a decent start that put him just outside the top five behind the #22 emblazoned Yamaha of Chad Reed. It didn’t take long to force his KTM into fifth position in an attempt to stay in touch with Marvin Musquin as he did in the heat race, but the top four were simply on another level from the rest of the competition. Nonetheless, Millsaps laid down a hot pace at the beginning of the race and continued to do so lap after lap before falling under pressure from Cole Seely. He managed to hold him off for a couple of laps, but was forced to give up the position on the seventh lap which put him back in sixth place. They had already developed a bit of a gap ahead of Reed in seventh posi- tion and Millsaps rode a fairly lonesome race from that point onward, quietly finishing
in sixth position to cap off a fantastic night for Forest Butler and the rest of the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC KTM team.
24 GRITMOTO • MARCH 19, 2017