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Justin Bogle has started to find his stride in recent weeks and aimed to showcase his newfound speed at the finale in Las Vegas. He would only qualify with the fourteenth quickest time but that was because they would only get one practice due to the torrential rain that would cancel the remaining qualifying sessions. The rain completely evened the playing field heading into the night show and
the fans were ready to see a wild evening of racing. Bogle was hyped up heading into the heat and it showed when he nailed the holeshot and got out to the early lead. He put his signature smooth and fun to watch style on display en route to a wire-to-wire heat race victory. He put on a clinic in the mud and suddenly emerged as a favorite to win the main event. With a massive confidence boost that comes with a dominating heat race win, Bogle was jazzed up and ready to keep it going in the main event. When the gate dropped, you could see Bogle gunning for the top position but he would come out of the first turn third. Then almost immediately, he cross rutted over the mini step up out of turn two sending him off course burying him in the field. He went from third to nineteenth very quickly and knew he had his work cut out for him if he wanted to even sniff the front. Just five laps into the race, Bogle had moved all the way up to eleventh place. He looked to have that heat race mojo going when he continued to move forward into ninth around the halfway point
of the sixteen lap main event. He started to put pressure on Grant for eighth and made the move a lap later but Grant would retaliate knocking Bogle to the ground. Now caked in mud, he remounted eleventh but his momentum was clearly knocked out of his sails as he fell backwards, finishing fourteenth. He has to be bummed out he couldn’t back up his impressive heat race performance in the main event but he showed he had the potential to do just that. It was a solid learning experience for Bogle and will look to carry the momentum he built in the last handful of rounds into his sophomore season in 2017.
words/SETHHARNISHFEGER
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