Courtesy of RacerX
January 13, 2019 2:45am
by Aaron Hansel
Jason Weigandt also contributed to this article.
Questions. Racing is full of them, and the reason the gate is ultimately dropped is to answer them. And after a strange season opener that had plenty of eye-popping results, including the defending 450SX champ struggling and finishing fourteenth, there were plenty of questions swirling as Monster Energy Supercross came into the second round. But were they answered? Let’s dive into Saturday Night Live to find out.
First, the fourteenth-place elephant in the room left over from last week. Was Anderson’s subpar performance at the season opener indeed due to nerves, and perhaps the slippery conditions? If you’re going to judge by how he rode in Glendale, the answer has to be yes. Anderson was much, much better this week, even leading laps before surrendering the lead to Blake Baggett late in the race.
“When I was leading I felt I was riding really good but I felt Blake right there,” Anderson said. “But I don’t think I had the speed I was throwing down the first three laps when I had the lead. Sometimes you have a comfortable pace and you’re able to gap, but I wasn’t able to gap Blake. He got up on me and I didn’t put up too much of a fight. Honestly second this week is so good after the way last week went. I was just happy to be up here and battling again. I was happy to be on the podium, even top five. I’ve been riding pretty good during the week. Last week there was a lot going on, just a lot of obligations, I had a ring ceremony during the night show, my heat race was bad, I just wasn’t in the right head space to go racing. So it’s really cool to be battling with these guys.”
Anderson’s second place didn’t come without a bit of controversy though, as he came together with Ken Roczen as he was passing into the lead. The move gave Anderson the lead, but it also resulted in Roczen hitting the deck and losing a few spots.
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RacerX 2019 Glendale Saturday Night Live