MXHeaven Race Report: Steel City
Perris CA. - MXHeaven Team Manager Stefan Elvin had some news to announce in the hot and steamy Steel City pit area over the weekend.
The news was that 17 year old top Swede Sarah Pettersson had joined the team to compete in the last two races in the WMX class.
This was Sarah's first time racing in the US and she had really been looking forward to this.
"I wanted to start carefully and feel my way through my first AMA race ever, my goal was to finish in the top half. With a 13th and a 17th place I almost manged to do just that. Now that I know how things work and also after getting a chance to rest and practise a little during the week, I will be able to step it up a bit for Pala", said Sarah after the race.
On the other hand Fredrik Noren and Calle Aspegren were not as consistent as Sarah.
In the first race, Fredrik was fighting for positions around 16th and 17th early on, but found the changing track conditions very tricky and eventually fell back to 19th. Calle on the other hand had crashed and could not get going for quite a while and when he did, he was too far behind to continue and decided to save his strength for later.
For the second race the roles were reversed. Fredrik was off to a midpack start, but twisted his foot and was forced to call it a day.
Instead it was Calles turn to shine. After a miserable start, he set a fast and consistent pace and starting from almost dead last, he picked off riders one at a time. At the end of the race he had made it up to 19th place with several more riders in his sights.
"I wanted the race to go on for a few more laps" said Calle. "The track had changed so much from the morning practice and qualifying that it took me a while to figure it out and adapt my riding style and line choice to the hard surface. I managed to get a good flow to my riding and if I had a few more laps I could have have improved even more".
As it was, 19th place was enough to earn him the Muscle Milk Energy drink "Most improved rider of the race" award.
The two points that they each earned was enough to place them 22nd and 23rd for the day, good but not quite what they had aimed for.
Now it is off to Pala for the last race of the season and one more chance for them to redeem themselves.
About MXHeaven:
In addition to the Motocross Racing Team, MXHeaven is the premier Motocross Holiday facility in California and is also offering a 2 or 4 year college / motocross program, where students study at a local college in the mornings and ride and train under MXHeaven supervision in the afternoons.
www.mxheaven-usa.com
MXHeaven Team Sponsors:
GOLDfren brakes, Troy Lee Designs, X-Brand, Wiseco, NoToil, Yoshimura, Works Connection, Dunlop, MTA, BelRay, K&N, Fluidyne Radiators, FactoryEffex, Renthal, Acerbis, Gaerne, AME Grips, RK Excel.
