Rockstar Energy Racing Husqvarna’s Jason Anderson started the year with an impressive second-place finish at Anaheim, a great mark for a rookie. But now American Honda’s Cole Seely is starting to emerge as the head of this rookie class, following a fifth last weekend at Oakland and with his own runner-up ride Saturday at Anaheim 3. He had to hold off Eli Tomac and Ken Roczen down the stretch to do it, too.
Racer X: First 450 podium full-time. Last one was Indy when you were doing part-time?
Cole Seely: Yeah, last year at Indy, third place, but this is my highest finish. I feel like this one’s a lot more deserved. The Indy one I got kind of lucky. Stewart, Roczen, and Villopoto all went down on the start so it allowed me to kind of get a break, but this time everyone was there. Everyone was going so fast. This class is still stacked.
We’re at the beginning of the season, still got everyone in there.
I’m really happy with getting on the box tonight especially. And I still had the leader in my sights, so that was good.
You were kind of moving up on [Ryan] Dungey; then you were getting gained on by [Ken] Roczen and [Eli] Tomac at different times. How tough is it to kind of ride your own race when you’re bouncing back and forth between the leader and third and fourth place?
It was really tough. I could see Ken in my peripheral in some of the 180s. He was kind of hanging tight, not really moving. We were staying dead even. I thought that’s how the race was going to go. Then right when I thought I could just start hitting my marks and taking a rest here and there, Eli caught him and they picked up the pace a lot, and I had to do the same. I started catching Dungey, they started catching me. I was just giving it my all up there. I didn’t have another lap in me.
What were those last two laps like? Tensing up pretty bad?
It was tough because first of all they didn’t put the two lap card out. It was pretty much blinding me. I thought I had three laps to go and I was kind of hanging on my last thread there and saw the white flag and caught another wind and just tried to cover my lines well and hit all my marks.
You came off a fifth last weekend. Are you just feeling the groove right now, or was the Anaheim track especially good for you?
I’m just trying to build each weekend and I think I’ve done a really good job with that. Happy with that.
