Page 34 - Issue-46

DYLAN FERRANDIS
250 SX / 2ND
IMAGE / LANG WORDS / HARNISHFEGER DESIGN / WILSON
>> Dylan Ferrandis’ rookie season here in the United States has gone quite well. The Frenchman rider riding for the Rockstar Star Racing Yamaha squad has only one finish worse than a seventh place. He was remained consistent and has shown flashes of his raw speed. He had a fantastic ride at Daytona to notch his first career podium and has mixed it up contending for wins like he did several weeks ago in Detroit. Coming off two fourth place finishes heading into the break, he was itching to taste the glory of stepping on the box as the series resumed in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Ferrandis looked feisty in practice and the technical track certainly suited his European style. He was one of the few riders out there that looked at home and it showed in his lap times. He set the second fastest lap time of the day just behind Zach Osborne who held the pole position. We were excited to see if he could translate that speed into great results come race time. He got off to a solid start in his heat and immediately engaged in battles with Adam Cianciarulo and Geico Honda’s Ben McAdoo. All three riders swapped positions dur- ing the first few laps. Ferrandis slid to third for a few laps before passing McAdoo back and riding to the finish in second. It seemed like towards the end of the race he found his groove and shook those pre-race jitters that caused several mistakes.
Ferrandis nailed another great start in the main as he rounded lap one in third position. He kept the leaders Savatgy and Cianciarulo in sight before Osborne came storming through a few laps in to push him to fourth. He then became engaged in a big battle between Ciancia- rulo, Osborne and Craig, you could throw a blanket over all of them. The battle tapered off when Osborne made the move on Cianciarulo with Ferrandis following suit a few laps later to take over third. He started distancing himself from AC during the latter half of the race putting in some of the quicker laps of the race. He stayed close enough to Savatgy, who was in second, to capitalize on his late race crash and inherit the second-place position. Fer- randis took it and held on all the way to the checkers for his career best finish. He put forth
a very strong race and will enjoy trying to play spoiler in the championship next weekend in Las Vegas.
34 GRITMOTO • APRIL 30, 2017