EKS Brand Athletes Report
Congratulations to the entire EKS BRAND race team for some great results in the first two rounds of the Monster Energy Supercross!
Round 1 Anaheim CA.
450 class
13th Kyle Chisholm
19th Bobby Kiniry
20th Mike Alessi
With a very poor start, our 3 year XBRAND goggle wearing veteran Kyle Chisholm rode hard and worked his way up through the pack to finish a solid 13th. With a bit more time on his new Yamaha, he will surely be working his way up each week.
It was a bit of a disappointing night for Bobby Kiniry. Kiniry, Chisholm's team mate had a great heat race battling with the best of them but then was forced to retire early in the main after a early crash.
Mike Alessi once again proved in his heat race that he is one of the all time greatest starters ever to race a motorcycle. After a very impressive heat, he went into the main with some confidence. A small crash on the first lap and then a massive crash on the 3rd lap unfortunately forced the number 800 to retire for the evening.
250 class
10th Michael Leib
15th Travis Baker
16th Austin Politelli
19th Jake Canada
Michael Leib is once again showing everyone that he is a force to be reckoned with! After a poor start Leib battled, I mean BATTLED, his way through the pack to a very respectable 10th place finish.
Travis Baker was in the middle of that Leib BATTLE as well... He actually got a descent start and raced inside the top ten most of the night. A pretty gnarly crash near the end of the race put him in 15th for the night.
The new kid on the EKS BRAND team, Austin Politelli is going to be a name you will hear more of this year. If not for a big first turn crash, he would have most likely been in the hunt for top privateer.
Jake Canada's misfortune was a broken bike while running in the top 10.... Look for him next week!
Round 2 Pheonix
450 class
13th Kyle Chisholm
19th Jimmy Albertson
20th Mike Alessi
Once again, Kyle Chisholm proved he is one of the very top Privateer racers in the world. A poor start had Kyle working his way through the pack to a great 13th place finish.
Jimmy Albertson is also new to the XBRAND/ BEER optics team. Jimmy was super sick all week and didn't even think he was going to race. He gutted it out and lined up, making the main by holding off Dungey for first place in the LCQ! Very impressive!!
Mike Alessi: The bad luck continued for Mike in Phoenix. After a DNF and a 20th place finish at the first two rounds, I pretty much see things looking up from here for the 800....
250 Class
13th Austin Politelli
17th Michael Leib
20th Jake Canada
Politelli had a pretty good night. Only a bad start kept him from finishing higher up in the results. He will keep improving as the season moves on.
Leib had a night he would rather forget. Being sick all week and then poor starts didn't help his results.
Canada... Wow here is one for you! Canada’s helmet removal system, which is mandated by the AMA, wasn’t in so he was sent back, while on the line, to get a new helmet with one in it. Unfortunately, because of live TV, the gate had to drop when it was scheduled and Jake was left with no helmet as the board went sideways. He quickly got it on as the gate fell, was probably three to four bike lengths behind everyone else, passed eight guys and then got black flagged because his helmet wasn’t done up. The funny thing was the AMA just wanted him to stop and do it up but he thought he was out permanently so he rode back to the truck. He definitely could’ve gotten some points back had he just strapped it up and kept on going. Look for Jake at the front next week!
Thank you to all the XBRAND athletes!
