Nate Thrasher on 10th at Seattle SX: “Something Happened to the Clutch”
Off the start of Saturday’s 250SX main event, Nate Thrasher was in contention to battle with the championship leaders. The winner of the San Diego SX back in late January, had a big crash in his Glendale SX heat that kept him out of the main event that night, but a whole month later Thrasher was healed and ready to battle again in Washington. Coming through the holeshot stripe about fifth come the Seattle SX main event, with championship leaders Levi Kitchen, Jordon Smith, RJ Hampshire, plus rookie Julien Beaumer right ahead of him, it appeared the #57 would battle for a podium spot. However, he dropped outside of the top five and then eventually came through the checkered flag tenth. He said the following in Yamaha’s post-race recap:
“It was definitely an eventful day. I came together with another guy, and something happened to the clutch. So I was just kind of surviving from then on and did what I could do. It just sucks. I felt like I had just started riding well and started moving my way up through the field, and then not having a clutch on that rutted track was definitely not easy. We’ll regroup and come back in St. Louis. The speed’s there. We’ve just got to execute better.”
Riding with a damaged clutch is not an easy feat, let alone on the rutted and difficult conditions that the field faced in Lumen Field. The clutch issue explains why Thrasher lost several positions.
Surprisingly, Michael Mosiman’s finished sixth in his first race of 2024 which was also his debut ride with the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing team. Thrasher came through tenth, then Jordon Smith came through 14th after a huge slam that left him winded.
On Monday, Thrasher posted the following to Instagram:
“I had a good day going in Seattle but unfortunately, the night didn’t go as I hoped. 5 minutes into the main, another rider and I came together which broke my clutch. I tried my best to ride with no clutch in those gnarly conditions. Racing is racing and I know we will regroup heading into St Louis next weekend. Thank you to the team for all their hard work @starracingyamaha 👊🏼”
