On The Pegs March 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 3 | Page 48

On The Pegs
48
Michael might have had a better shot at second had he not wrapped his brake
pedal around his foot peg on Saturday, which cost him a lot of time.
“Yesterday was going pretty good,” said Michael. “I stayed pretty mistake-free
all day, just kind of started off slow. I was picking up speed as the day went and I
felt really good and then in the last test I didn’t know what happened. I just kind
of went against the bank and then I was on the ground. I was pretty confused
because I didn’t feel like I did anything wrong, but after looking at the track I saw
there was just a little hidden stump kind of in the track, or where we banked off
and it just happened to grab my foot peg and broke the brake tip off. Then it ac-
tually bent the rest of the pedal that was left on top of my foot peg, so I couldn’t
even have my foot hardly on the peg and it cost me a lot of time.”
Michael made up for the incident by winning a test each day to salvage third.
Strang was frustrated with fourth in the Pro division (fifth overall). The 2018
series champ had look as though he would finish second on Saturday, but test
five had to be thrown out for the Pro class due to a banner that got taken down,
which dropped him to third.
“It was a bit disappointing,” said Strang. “I think I might have finished third if we
had that test in. I struggled a little bit all weekend, but other than that, it’s good
to be back racing. The track got really rough this weekend, so I think compared
to last year it was maybe rougher. The sand was a little wetter than normal and it
created some more bumps. But it was good. For the most part I felt decent, but
not as good as I feel like I should have. But it’s all right.”
Draper, last year’s Pro2 champion, was fifth in the Pro class.
“I started off rough,” said the New Zealander. “Day one, test one I crashed. It just
put me back, but today I rode good. I was happy with that. Mixing it up with the
top boys. I’m up in the XC1 now so it’s no joke, really. You got some fast boys out
there. Hopefully round two goes better.”
DeLong had several good tests, but a few rough ones to go along with it and
finished sixth in the Pro class and eighth overall.
Ashburn rounded out the top seven in the Pro division.
Team Babbitt’s Online/Monster Energy/Kawasaki Team Green’s Lyndon Snod-
grass, from Australila, won the Pro2 division on a by 7.4 seconds over Trail Jest-
ers KTM’s Johnny Girroir. Snodgrass was also good for fourth overall, beating his
teammate Strang by about seven seconds.
Snodgrass won every test on Saturday except for the final Enduro test, which
was won by Girroir.