Jason Anderson’s starts have sucked this year. There you have it. He’s trying to figure out why. He and his team have put every variable on the table, and one area of focus has been gate picks. Anderson isn’t a practice master. He’s a gamer, someone who gets faster when it counts in the races. The trouble is, his qualifying times and heat race gate picks are starting to count more than ever.
When 450SX semis came back two years ago, the 450 heats were cut by two laps. That’s 25 percent less time to make up for a bad gate and a bad start in the heat, or you’re off to the semi and an even worse pick. For three weeks, Anderson found himself in the semis. His starts were already off, and that wasn’t helping.
“The way the gates are there’s very few good ones now,” he told us in the pits in Glendale, Arizona two weeks ago. “A lot of the other ones have holes or something weird in them. So I definitely feel like putting yourself in the right position from practice to the race to get the gate picks. I feel like that’s something Dungey’s been doing.”
As we documented earlier this week, Dungey has won five-straight heats, and each was the fastest heat of the night, so he’s had first gate pick in the last five main events. Anderson? Here are his main event gate picks this year:
| Round | Gate Pick |
| Anaheim 1 | 4 |
| San Diego 1 | 7 |
| Anaheim 2 | 9 |
| Oakland | 9 |
| Glendale | 9 |
| San Diego 2 | 4 |
After three-straight races with the ninth gate pick in the main, Anderson really wanted a better gate for San Diego 2. That motivation didn’t change anything in daytime qualifying, where he ended up ninth.
"Practice was so-so, just normal Jason,” he said in a team statement.
But he was determined to fix that in the heat race. He came around the first lap in fifth after a small battle with Jake Weimer, then started bulldozing his way to the front. He had six laps to pass four riders, so the intensity increased, perhaps beyond the typical heat race.
Halfway through he was into third with BTOSports.com KTM teammates Justin Brayton and Davi Millsaps in front of him. Brayton and Millsaps slowed each other up, and Anderson, determined to match Dungey’s heat win from earlier, went for the kill, trying to pass both riders in one corner. He made some contact and Brayton ended up off the track, going from first to fifth—and the semi—in one fell swoop.
Brayton is far from the first to bear the brunt of an Anderson pass. This is from Anderson just a few weeks ago: “But I’m kind of making it hard on myself. I came through the pack and I had a little bit of a sketchy moment with [Chad] Reed there in the double, triple, double. I thought he was going to go triple and I clipped his back tire and almost looped it.”
His year-and-a-third in the premier class has, by his own admission, included some “bonehead moves” and there are similar tales from his 250 days. Anderson just doesn’t get starts, and he uses aggressive tactics to make up for it. After the Brayton hit, he tried to make the same move on Millsaps a lap later, but actually slowed himself in the tangle, allowing Millsaps to get back past. Millsaps won the heat, Anderson was second. Better than the semi, but still not the win he wanted, plus he had created another potential enemy in Brayton. Someday, all of this smashing is going to catch up to him.
But on other days, it’s going to help him.
Better gate pick or not, Anderson ended up with another terrible start in the main, as he entered turn one at the very back of the pack. So it was back to the aggression, to taking no prisoners, to trying to go through the pack to the podium.
The San Diego track was exceptionally hard to pass on, and that’s where his aggression paid off. Eli Tomac tried and tried to get around Trey Canard for fourth. Anderson rolled up on this battle and wasted zero time passing both. He zapped Tomac with the first opening he saw; two laps later he passed Canard in the same turn. Of course it took some contact to do it.
“In the main I did not get a good start,” he said. “It was tough to make passes but I made it happen. There was a little bit of contact going on but I came through passing those guys. I was actually really excited with who I passed and the way I was getting through them. I've been looking forward and I'm just gonna keep plugging away. All in all it's not a bad night with a fourth and I'm just going to keep charging, but we don't work this hard to get bad starts and get fourth, I want to get on the podium.”
He wants it, no doubt. The motives are pure, and that’s why some of the riders he’s run into, like Cole Seely, are okay with it all, because most of this comes from a basic necessity of making passes. It’s aggressive, but it’s still racing. It won’t always work that way, though, and someday someone will get mad and issue payback. Anderson is living by the sword. For now.
Jeez, what happened to the guy who nailed all three holeshots at the Monster Energy Cup? Maybe they just need to build every track with a drop down start like that one. Then everyone would be safe, including Anderson himself.
