Courtesy of RacerX
March 5, 2018 11:20am
by Jason Weigandt
The Triple Crown format is supposed to create multiple winners, and it delivered that at Atlanta with six different riders taking wins in the six races on Saturday night. These individual races do not count in the actual supercross record book—only overall winners Jason Anderson and Austin Forkner get that honor, which makes sense. Still, crossing the checkers first is a big deal if you’ve never done it before, so Justin Brayton couldn’t hide his enthusiasm after winning the first 450SX main. Brayton has won heat races before but never a main event in either class, so this was a big one for him—he even had to fend off points leader Jason Anderson to do it.
We talked to the Smartop/Bullfrog Spas/MotoConcepts Honda rider after the race.
Racer X: You did it! We did it!
Justin Brayton: We did it, Weege!
Let’s start by going backward. You started the year really strong, on the verge of podiums. The last few weeks were not as good. Was something changing or was it just starts, or what?
The starts weren’t as good, but I really don’t think the last two tracks really suited me that well. Dallas started out good for me, it really went away from me, though. I was fastest in the first practice in Dallas and fourth in the second one, but as the day went on, it got really choppy. Just wasn’t comfortable in the main. Actually I crashed in the main, I think I was running seventh or eighth and then I finished tenth. Then last week, hey, I’m not an outdoor guy and they threw an outdoor section at me [laughs]. I just was not comfortable in the sand! All day that section just messed with me. That sand section, honestly, it just ruined the whole lap for me. I was thinking about it. Here, I just felt instantly comfortable and back to my old self, kinda back to what you were saying at the beginning of the year, podium threat. It was nice to get back to that and nice to get good starts. I was really excited about that first one! That was fun!
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RacerX 2018 Atlanta Triple Crown 450 Words