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Marvin Musquin entered the Easter break as arguably the hottest rider in the class. Four straight podium finishes and one near race win had him ‘en fuego’ prior to the series resuming in Santa Clara. He wanted to keep his hot streak going but things took a turn for the worst when he went down hard in practice. The crash would plague his qualifying performance that would end up being a measly thirteenth fastest. Musquin was not about
to give up for the night and he decided to give it a try come race time.
He got off to a fast second place start that was exactly what he needed. He definitely did not want to expend the extra energy dicing through the field. Almost as fast as the got off to that good start, the returning James Stewart snuck right on by stealing second place. Musquin did not give much of a fight and stayed steady the remainder of the race to grab third and a ticket straight to the main.
Musquin got off to a decent start in the main event in around seventh. I thought he would begin to dissect the field and show that speed we have become accustomed to seeing but he was still feeling the effects of his practice crash. He
hung in there losing just a few spots in the first half of the race but completely dropped the anchor in the latter portion. He dropped all the way to a very disappointing 17th place finish. We hope his injuries from the practice crash are not to seri- ous se we can see him back at a 100% next weekend in Indianapolis.
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