Anaheim 2 Challenging for Andrew Short
#29 Andrew Short and the Supercross.com/Honda team came into the Anaheim 2 round of the 2012 Monster Energy Supercross series hoping to carry the momentum of a season's best 5th place finish into Angel Stadium. Although the day started off extremely well, the tough track and tougher competition provided challenges that would turn the main event into a struggle to simply finish.
The Coach Seiji personal training client went through his well honed qualifying efforts to emerge with the 8th fastest overall time in the Supercross class, giving him a great 4th gate pick for his heat race.
The first turn of the A2 track seemed to split the field in half on the start: one half went to the far outside berm, one half tip toed around the inside. Andrew was in the first heat, got a good jump and immediately headed for the inside down the start straight. As the melee of riders urgently fought to get through, Andrew held tough on his inside line choice and came out in 6th place after the first few turns. The sharp end of the field started stringing out in the first pair of laps, then Shorty passed Partridge for 5th on lap three. Stewart was steadily pulling away at the front but on lap four, the JGR rider went down doing a tricky wheel tap rhythm, advancing Andrew into fourth place. A lap later, Andrew would take over third place by passing Hansen and would maintain that position for the remainder of the heat race.
Andrew again earned a good gate pick for the main. He gated well enough to hold down a top ten position after the first few lanes of the opening lap but then bad fortune would strike. He came up on to Metcalf's rear wheel while charging through the whoops, sending him down hard on his chest. Andrew took a while to remount and adjust his levers, returning to the action in last place by a large margin. A stop in the pits added to his deficit, going back out almost a lap down to the leaders. Although in last place, Andrew rode well for the remainder of the main event, eventually garnering a well earned 14th place.
Although far from attaining his goals and obviously disappointed, Andrew (as well as Coach Seiji) is thankful that he left Angel Stadium in one piece to fight another day. On to San Diego!
