Page 54 - ISSUE78

WESTON PEICK
450 MX / 10TH
IMAGE / LANNAN WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Weston Peick has been riding the entire Lucas Oil Pro Motocross series this season with torn ligaments in his thumb and hand. The injury is on his throttle hand making matters even worse. All season long he has said that his hand will go numb late in motos making it very dif cult to hang on and maintain a strong pace. His results sure haven’t shown it. He has nished in the top ten overall at every round thus far and has been knocking on the top ve on several occasions. He has nished sixth overall at ve of the ten races thus far. But as the season has worn on, his injury has been growing harder to deal with as it has not had time to heal. There were rumors he would sit out the last two rounds, but he lined it up to go racing here at Budds Creek. Peick enjoyed a solid pair of morning qualifying practice sessions. He managed to withstand the pain and throw down a couple heaters to secure the ninth fastest lap time of the class. He was ready to grind out two more motos of action. Peick did not get the greatest of starts in moto one. He came around lap one buried a bit in eleventh place. He managed to pass Toshiki Tomita on lap two to take over tenth. He managed to lock down the spot and he held it down for the rst half of the moto. However, late in the moto, his hand started acting up again and he started moving backwards. Kyle Cunningham pushed him back to eleventh place on lap eight and then a few laps later, both Henry Miller and Dylan Merriam would get by, pushing him to thirteenth. Then with just three laps to go, Jake Masterpool would also pass him pushing Peick to fourteenth where he would end up nishing. It was de nitely
a tough moto for Peick, but he was determined to grit out the second moto. Peick got a better start in this one rounding the rst lap in seventh place. He did a good job holding down the spot until lap four when he succumbed to pressure from Cooper Webb. This sent him back to eighth position. Halfway through the moto, Benny Bloss would also pass him after a brief battle. Now in ninth, Peick managed to hold it down and spin con- sistent lap times. Late in the moto, he got a scare from Dylan Merriam closing the gap, but he was able to keep the spot and nish ninth. His 14-9 moto scores were enough to salvage a tenth overall on the day. Peick only has to deal with the pain in his hand for one more round.
54 GRITMOTO • AUGUST 19, 2018