Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Justin Cooper started the 450 main event in Denver in 13th and finished in 13th. But that’s not the entire story as besides the top two (in the race and in the Championship), Hunter Lawrence and Ken Roczen, there was a lot of action further back. J-Coop had worked his way up to sixth at one point, with his teammate Cooper Webb and Jorge Prado just in front of him. Unable to get around Webb, it stalled his momentum and Dylan Ferrandis, who was making a late race charge, pulled up alongside of him through the whoops and the two collided in the sand. Less than a minute later, Webb got into Prado and went down. It was a wild race and our Aaron Hansel was able to catch up with Cooper afterwards to get his take on what went down.
Racer X: Justin Cooper, kind of a crazy race for you. You had a huge battle with your teammate, Cooper Webb, and then it later came apart when you got together with Dylan Ferrandis. Take us through that battle.
Justin Cooper: Yeah, I started way back so I made really good progress up until I would say, Coop [Webb]. He was cutting down really low in the turns, so I didn’t really know how to go about passing him without T-boning him. I felt like I was just stuck there. It’s a bummer. I did get the run on him and made a pass, then I made a little mistake and he got me back.
It seemed like there were four or five times you had a pass lined up. I guess he is crafty.
Well, you got him, then you got [Jorge] Prado, so it was a tough road to get to Eli [Tomac]. I definitely had the speed to get to Eli, I felt like he wasn’t riding that great. He seemed like he was struggling a little bit. As soon as I got in the battle with Coop, I kind of hit a wall. I just lost all my flow. I had really good speed coming through the pack, and all of a sudden, I fell apart there. By the time I went down with Ferrandis I was already deflated so I wasn’t too bummed about that. Otherwise, I rode really well tonight and I’m pumped on it, actually.
I didn’t see the crash happen with [Dylan] Ferrandis. Take us through that.
We both went for the line and I kind of messed up the whoops with Coop in front of me. We were both going down the right side and Ferrandis got a good run on the left side and tried to get to the inside with me. We were both going for the line and we kind of just locked bars and went down. No one’s fault, just a racing incident, but I would say my race was over before that.
Watch the incident starting at the 2:07 mark in the video highlights below.
