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Dodge/Rch Racing Race Advance - Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series - Round 9 - St. Louis
JOSH HILL (No. 75 Dodge/Sycuan Casino/RCH Racing/Bel-Ray/Suzuki Z450)
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HOW HAS PRACTICE GONE THIS WEEK IN ADVANCE OF ST. LOUIS? “Practice has gone well this week. We rode hard for a few days trying to gain some speed. I’m just trying to hammer out some laps to get back the speed that I use to have.”
THREE MAIN EVENTS IN A ROW FOR YOU SINCE COMING BACK AT ROUND 6 IN SAN DIEGO. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE NEARING 100 PERCENT YET? “Almost. I’m getting there. I still don’t have the strength in my hand that I had before I crashed in Anaheim. I’m getting more comfortable with it every day.”
YOU WENT ELBOW-TO-ELBOW WITH SOME GUYS LAST WEEKEND IN DALLAS. DOES THAT GIVE YOU A BOOST OF CONFIDENCE? “I had a good battle with Weston (Peick). He got within striking distance when I made a mistake coming into the whoops. He wasn’t really close enough to make a pass but I knew that he was going to go for it because we were fighting for that final transfer spot. I knew that he was coming in there, so I just leaned into him a little bit and it worked out in my favor.
“The real cool thing for me was battling it out with Eli Tomac. We passed each other a couple times on the first lap and I had to hold him off for about four laps. That was cool. I have a lot of work to do. I didn’t really ride well in practice. I didn’t ride well in my Heat Race and didn’t get a good gate pick for the Main.”
THE LAST THREE RACE WINNERS HAVE GONE WIRE-TO-WIRE IN THE 450SX CLASS. HAS THAT CHANGED YOUR APPROACH TO RACE STARTS AT ALL? “You always want to get a good start but you have to give yourself a chance by having a good qualifying run and Heat race. Everyone knows how important that first turn is.”
BROC TICKLE (No. 20 Dodge/Sycuan Casino/RCH Racing/Bel-Ray/Suzuki Z450)
STARTING IN ST. LOUIS LAST YEAR, YOU CLOSED OUT THE SEASON WITH NINE-CONSECUTIVE FINISHES INSIDE THE TOP 12. ARE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE ON THE BACKHALF TRACKS? “I don’t think that it’s a matter of being better at certain tracks as compared to just getting better as the season moves along. For us, it’s about moving forward, doing everything we can during the week to get better and prepared for the race on Saturday.”
HAS THE IMPORTANCE OF GATE SELECTION IN THE MAIN EVENT PUT MORE PRESSURE ON THE HEAT RACE FINISHES? “Last week, I had a pretty good gate selection but I just wasn’t aggressive enough and got bounced back in the first turn. Once you see that opening, you have to go for it. I wasn’t lollygagging around, I just wasn’t aggressive enough and the other guys were.”
DOES YOUR STRATEGY CHANGE AT ALL HEADING INTO ROUND NINE IN ST. LOUIS ON SATURDAY NIGHT? “Not really, same game plan. Last week, I had a really good Heat Race, got a good gate pick and that has to be the plan again this week. I felt like I rode the best I have all year in Dallas a few weeks ago. I need to be aggressive.”
WITH SUCH A LACK OF PASSING THE LAST FEW RACES, DOES IT BECOME FRUSTRATING WHEN THE TRACK BECOMES ONE-GROOVED AND HARD TO GET AROUND GUYS? “For sure. You may be faster than a guy in front of you but there just isn’t a line to get around him. What makes it worse is when you do try to make a pass you end up losing time and the guy behind gains on you. It’s a counter-effect of making a pass. When you go for a pass you better make sure that it works. Otherwise, the guy behind you will gain a lot of ground.”
YOU HAD TOP-FIVE SPEED IN YOUR HEAT RACE LAST WEEKEND. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE INCHING UP ON TOP-10 OR BETTER MAIN EVENT RESULTS? “If I had gotten the start that I needed in the Main Event, I’m pretty confident I had the speed to run top-five, top-six, top-seven. The times were so close last weekend with all the guys within a half-second of each other. It’s a tough class right now.”
RICKY CARMICHAEL (Owner, RCH Racing)
RACE WINNERS HAVE GONE WIRE-TO-WIRE THE LAST THREE RACES IN THE 450SX CLASS. IS THAT GOOD FOR THE SPORT? “Dominating can be good and can be bad for the sport. I think the reason it’s like that is because guys are so close in speed. I don’t think there’s much that you can do to make the race start less important. It’s just that competitive right now in the 450 Class. It’s a byproduct of the sport and how competitive it is right now.”
IS THERE ANYTHING WITH COURSE DESIGN THAT CAN ALLIVIATE RIDERS GOING WIRE-TO-WIRE EN ROUTE TO WINS? “No. I wish someone had a magic wand, but it’s just part of the sport. Nobody wants to take a big risk early in the race. Unfortunately, the last weeks haven’t been that exciting because guys have gotten a holeshot and taken off on the rest of the pack. It will turn around. Sometimes you just get a string of races where the guy who gets the holeshot wires the field.”
WHAT WOULD YOUR APPROACH BE WHEN THE GATE DROPS KNOWING HOW IMPORTANT TURN 1 HAS BECOME? “I have two ways of looking at it. First, what’s my chance of getting to the first corner first? If I don’t get a good jump out of the gate, what’s my safest route around the corner? If I’m mid-pack and I see an opening going through the corner, I’d be extremely aggressive, without knocking people over, getting on the throttle and passing as many people as I can. If you just cruise through there and let other people be aggressive, you get passed by a bunch of guys. Now you’re 15th and trapped. That’s what I tell Broc and Josh: You can’t just cruise around the first turn.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED BY THE LACK OF PASSING? “Not really. The sport is so competitive; the speeds are so close right now. When there’s only one fast line out there, it’s hard to get past guys. When the guy in front of you takes the good line, unless you run up there and punt him off the track, it’s just tough.
“What can you do to make the starts so sensitive? Jimmie Johnson texted me and asked the same question. How do you make the race start less important? I told him the same thing: There’s so much parity that there isn’t anything that you can do to make it different right now. Riders are that good.
“If you make the tracks easier people are going to complain that all the riders are doing the same thing and we’re not going to see any passing. If you make the track extremely, extremely hard, then you’re only going to get certain guys doing certain things. Then, it’s really going to be a runaway because the guys with more talent will just crush guys and be gone. It’s just part of the sport right now.”
DID YOU TALK TO BROC THIS WEEK ABOUT ATLANTA? WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM? “Last weekend was a bitter pill to swallow for me. It’s my job to help our riders get the best results that we can and it just didn’t happen last weekend in Atlanta. Broc (Tickle) was really good in practice, the best that he’s been the last couple weeks. He had a great Heat Race, one of his best of the season riding right there with (Ryan) Villopoto. It took Villopoto a while to get around him and when he did get in front, Broc hung on to him for a while. When you see a performance like that you expect the Main Event to be good.
“Broc has been stuck with the surroundings that he’s in or starts with. When you start 15th, you have to ride like you did in your Heat Race and in practice. You can’t get into someone else’s groove. He knows that. That was a tough pill to swallow. The only fortunate thing for us is that the guys in front of us in points didn’t pull away from us. It wasn’t too bad points wise, but it’s frustrating when you take what should have been a potential fifth to eighth-place finish and get a 12th.”
PaddockTalk Perspective
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