http://www.adbmag.com.au JUNE 2017 | 33IT HAS BEENaprettyrough
couple of weeks, that’s for
sure. For whatever reason,
nothing has gone right. On the
incident with Ryan Dungey in
St Louis, I disagree with the
penalty, I don’t accept it and
we will see what we can do to
try and change it.
It is pretty obvious this race
director seems to be making
crazy decisions just for me.
When you go back and look at
the lap times, Ryan did 53sec
while he was behind me and
then dropped into 54/55sec
the whole time he was behind
the Millsaps/Barcia battle. So,
on paper, he lost more time
from them, but they didn’t
receive fines.
It has been suggested that I
retaliated for comments Ryan
made after the heat race. I
wasn’t aware of what he’d said
until after the final. At some
point, enough is enough; you
have to make a stand.
I have raced in over 200
Mains. Of those 200, in some
way shape or form, a lapperhasalwaysplayedarolein
the outcome of the race, be it
good or bad. I have had it go
both ways, so in this
instance, I feel like I was a
victim of my name.
I am happy to report that
Ryan and I talked in Seattle
and there are no hard feelings.
If I was in his shoes I probably
would have done the same
thing. I told him my side, and
he admitted some things
which I was happy to hear.
While I did take some positives
from Seattle, it was another
frustrating weekend.
In my heat race, I rode tight,
so it was good for me to have
to go through to the semi. On
the last lap of the semi, I
looked at the triple under the
table and knew it was doable.
In the Main, I committed and
launched it. Eli (Tomac) was in
front of me and had done the
same, so I tried to gauge off
him. By hitting the triple, we
started passing guys pretty
fast. I believe in the end we
were the only two who did it.Unfortunately, on the
fourth lap, a rock got stuck in
my rear brake. It was as if the
bike was stuck in third gear. I
tried to bounce and shake it
out, but in the end, I had topull into the mechanic’s area
and have it removed.
I went back out and pushed
hard. It was good to feel
comfortable out there. I liked
the track and the conditions,
but I have never seen it rocky
like that before.
There have been a lot of
things that have gone
completely wrong with no
explanation. I have crashed a
lot, and that is not me.
It has been tough to keep
trying, regroup and hold my
head high. The focus is still to
get a win. I need to shake off
the negatives and keep
making progress.
Finally, I want to say to all
of you race fans in Australia,
get behind local events. It
was sad to hear the news
that the Troy Bayliss Classic
dirt track won’t happen next
year. These sort of events
need massive support.
Personally; I hope it returns
in 2019 as it is an event I
have on my bucket list to do
in years to come.CRASHING IS NOT MY STYLE
NO HARD FEELINGS WITH RYAN DUNGEY
A LAPPER HAS
ALWAYS PL AY ED A
ROLE IN THE
OUTCOME OF THE
RACE, BE IT GOOD
OR BAD
SOIL SAMPLE
CHAD REED
STILL
BAD ARSE