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MITCHELL HARRISON
250 MX / 9TH
IMAGE / LANG WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> Unfortunately, Mitchell Harrison’s 2018 has been rather forgettable. The rider hailing from Michigan struggled in the 250SX West Coast Championship series. He managed to notch just
ve top tens in ten rounds with his best nish being a seventh. Harrison was coming off a career best year in both Supercross and outdoor motocross, but he just failed to nd a rhythm in Super- cross. Then right before Hangtown, Harrison suffered an untimely set back when he suffered a minor AC separation. He was nally gelling with his Rockstar Energy Husqvarna and had to sit out the rst few rounds. This knocked the wind out of his sails, but he would return at High Point. He nished fteenth there and fourteenth a weekend ago at Muddy Creek. Bad starts hurt him in all four of those motos, but his speed is there. He was hoping to nail a good start or two at Southwick to jumpstart his season and return to the level we saw him at a year ago when he almost won a moto at Red Bud. Harrison had a shaky pair of morning qualifying practice sessions. He struggled to really lay down a full fast lap and he’d only come away with the fteenth fastest lap time in the class. However, just one great start would jumpstart him and get his day, and season, going on the right track. Harrison’s rst moto could not have started much worse. He suffered a terrible start and would crash in the opening few laps. He’s lowest point was twenty-fourth on lap four. But once he nally stabilized himself, he started lurching forward. He spent much of the moto eating a ton of sand climbing through the pack and when it was all said and down. He had managed to nish up
in fteenth place. Certainly not the moto or result that he would like but he still had another moto to bounce back. Harrison got a better start in moto two, but it still wasn’t the best. He rounded lap one in eleventh and then lost a spot to Colt Nichols on lap two. He used the next two laps to settle in and focus because on lap four, he started his surge. He picked off Challen Tennant, Jordon Smith, and Jordon Bailey on successive laps to move into ninth on lap six. He then spent the next few laps running back down Nichols and then passing him back on lap nine to move to eighth. This is when things really started to click for him. He started making up some ground on the lead pack that lay just ahead. On lap twelve, he’d hop to seventh after a crash from Austin Forkner. He had three laps to go when he caught points leader Aaron Plessinger. Harrison pushed as hard as he could toward him and would make the pass on him on the nal lap to earn himself a very rewarding sixth place nish. Running down the series points leader late in the moto on one of the toughest course on one of the hottest days of the summer has to give Harrison a huge con dence boost. His 15-6 moto scores got him ninth overall on the day and that second moto gives him a ton of momentum heading into his hometown race at Red Bud next weekend.
54 GRITMOTO • JULY 1, 2018