Justin Cooper has been quietly stalking the podium in the last five rounds of Monster Energy AMA Supercross. But in Indianapolis he was finally able to match his career best of second place in a 450SX main event. After a fourth place start, he rode behind Justin Barcia for most of the main, before finally making the pass, and then eventually capitalizing on a mistake by Chase Sexton to take over second. Justin said in the post-race press conference that for him, it's been a long time coming.
“First of all, I feel like it's been right there the whole time, and I felt like I had a really good speed last week in Daytona, came from about tenth and, yeah, almost got on the podium there," Cooper said. "So, everything's been going, I think, in the right direction and my speed's been there, and my fitness is there. I know that. So, I was able to start in the top five tonight. First of all, the heat race is terrible, side saddled off the bike and had a really bad gate pick for the main, I think it was like 13th or 14th, so I went to the inside and was able to come out pretty well. And yeah, from there, I stalked Justin [Barcia] for a little bit, and I was just doing the big rhythms, and I knew he was struggling in the whoops. So, he missed the rhythm before the whoops. I got underneath him and then was able to get a gap on him from there on out. And yeah, just clicked off my laps, Chase ended up going down in the sand. So, just focused on myself and hitting the lines I was hitting, and I felt like I was not doing anything special out there, just hitting my marks and that's what was important tonight on a track like this.”
Justin is another one of those riders, being from New York, who just seems to ride better when the series heads east. The dirt is softer, and the whoops break down more, making it faster to jump through, which is his specialty.
“Yeah, the whoops, I wouldn't even say were jumpers tonight," Cooper said. "It was more about balance, I think. They were definitely rutted and you just had to keep the bike straight all the way through and I think that was kind of the key tonight, was just the mistakes were to limit those and stick to the big lines and that was pretty key. I felt like I was making up a lot of time on the guys in front of me and just being consistent with that kind of flow with the track and set up my passes. So yeah, overall, it was a tricky track and a lot of laps tonight. So, definitely had to keep the focus and yeah lock in for the for the end of the race. It was getting pretty gnarly.”
Justin went on the PulpMX Show earlier this week to talk about his podium, being underrated, his whoop speed, and hanging in there on gnarly tracks until the end. This is only Justin’s second full season of 450 supercross and his progression, while sometimes overlooked, has been impressive. He currently sits fourth in points.
“I think compared to last year, I think all around I've made progress and it's good to see," he said. "Going into year two, riding better this year and I think I've been way closer to the podium spot a lot more frequent and yeah, it came at the last round last year so been in a podium fight pretty much a lot of these races. Yeah, I felt like I should have had one by now, but it's definitely better now than never, and I think just going into year two, I just have more experience riding with these guys and, yeah, Justin [Barcia] was definitely, you know, a hard guy to pass and get away from without some retaliation. So, make sure I set up my pass and once I did that, I was able to focus forward and just focus on the track really because it was deteriorating pretty fast and like I said, you gotta be focused out there.”
With 4-5-4-4-2 results at the last five rounds, Justin is showing he is a podium contender now. Will he be able to keep this momentum going, and check off even more podiums before this thing is over?
