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Plessinger seemed to be carrying a bit of a limp from the Toronto crash, but he didn’t appear to have any issues on the bike throughout the day. He qualified 8th which is admittedly below his standards, but he looked comfortable all day and when it came time to race, he didn’t do any
messing around. He got a decent start in his heat race and made some moves down the right side of the whoops on the first lap which put him into 5th place. He rode a smart race and didn’t do anything wild, following Tonus calmly and nipping him for 4th place on the last lap. This gave Plessinger a pretty good gate pick for the main event which would be more crucial than he could have imagined in a race that was almost as chaotic as last week’s in Toronto. He was able to take a page out of the Ryan Dungey book of starts and take a very patient inside line which put him in 2nd place behind Tonus, a flashback to the heat race. He followed Tonus again, knowing that he would be able to make the move sooner or later, but Malcolm Stewart was not going to be denied. Plessinger made a mistake jumping through the first set of whoops on the 2nd lap and Stewart took advantage and used the 180 degree corner after the whoops to make a block pass. Shortly thereafter, Tonus went over the bars at the end of the whoops section on the 5th
lap and gave up 2nd place to the Ohioan. Plessinger attempted to match the pace of Stewart, but ultimately the whoops were the deciding factor. He could not match the consistency of Mookie through that sector of the track and he made too many mistakes trying different ways to get through the first set of whoops. The way that his season has gone, he looked happy to settle for second place and get on the podium for the second time this season.
words/LAKEKILPATRICK
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