Article: Round 5 Mx

June 1, 2011

Dade City Motocross – 2011 Points Championship Series
April 2nd, 2011 – Round 5
Immediately upon his arrival in the realmotocross.com Sponsor’s Cup has come domination by Troy Adams.  So far with each of his wins Adams has looked as though he is not even trying, and although he has assured me that he is pushing as hard as he can he has frustrated his competition with his soomth style and speed.
Extremely heavy rains during the week had wreaked havoc on the track, even forcing the DCMX staff to cancel the Thursday night practice.  When practice time arrived the track was still pretty soft just about everywhere, but amazingly good considering that most of the obstacles had been washed away and a lake had taken their place just a day earlier.  As the riders took to the track for the ever important timed practice, which determines gate pick, the top lap times were much closer together than they had been at the last couple of rounds.  When the checkers fell on the session Kory Keylon had nailed the top gate choice for the first moto.  Adams was second fastest only .2 seconds behind Keylon with Tyler Livesay in third less than a tenth behind Adams.
The 250C class had some luck in the draw and was the third moto of the night.  Always one of the largest classes at DCMX, round 5 had 19 entries leaving only a couple of empty gates.  When the gate fell Jackson Human jumped out to grab the holeshot followed closely by Ethan Rentz.  In third was Austin Griffis followed by Nick Stokes and Tim Ball rounding out the top five.  On lap three Griffis made a mistake and Stokes and Dwayne White, who had moved up through the field both got by.  On the final lap White made a pass from 3rd to the lead, but race officials determined he had cut the track and was penalized 2 positions.  Human won the moto with Rentz in second and White in third.
The Sponsor’s Cup class was the 11th moto in the race order, and the track had already begun to deteriorate for the premier class riders.  Livesay got a great jump and scored the holeshot award and was followed closely by Millett, Adams and Keylon.  Keylon, no doubt frustrated by the wins in the last two rounds by Adams, made a quick move into third around Adams on lap two and set his sights on Millet in the second position.  Up front Millett challenged Livesay a few times, but could never get past.  After a few laps the two settled into their respective positions.  As the race wore on Keylon closed in on Millett, and made a heroic move to take over the second position just two corners before the finish.  Livesay came home first, Keylon second, Millet third and Adams a disappointing fourth.
Extra care was taken to attempt to get the track back into decent shape for the second set of motos, as all of the racing action had taken a toll on its soft surface.  After being penalized for an off track excursion in the first moto Dwayne White blasted out of the gate in second behind Talon Gauthier.  Michael Wesserman, taking a break from winter back home in Indiana was in third, Joseph Gonzales fourth and Stokes in fifth.  The soft track conditions took their toll on a number of riders, Gauthier losing the lead when he fell as well as 1st moto top finishers Rentz and Griffis being knocked out of the race with a hard get together.  Once out front White would not make any mistakes and would lead the field to the checkers, the visiting Wesselman came home second and Gonzales had a solid ride finishing in the third position.  The overall results were White – 1st, Human – 2nd, and Aaron Contopoulo with a consistent 5-4 for third.
Sponsor’s Cup class moto two began much like the first moto with Livesay grabbing the holeshot followed by Millett, Adams and Keylon.  On lap two Keylon jumped past Adams on the big table adjacent to the back straight.  Keylon had the preferred outside line, but Adams tried to stick it inside of him to regain the position.  Adams stuck the front tire and went down in the deep, soft sand, allowing Keylon to take third with a sizeable gap over the next rider.  Adams was down for some time, finally remounting at the back of the pack.  As the leaders each held a safe gap over the next rider Adams was charging hard to try to make up for his mistake.  By the motos end Adams had moved up to the fifth spot, right behind Jerry Kopoian who was riding his third different bike in as many rounds.  Livesay won the moto and the overall, with Millett taking second and Keylon third.  For each of the top three the overall results were the same as the final moto scores.
We have learned that Adams is beatable, as he struggled in the deep soft conditions of round 5.  Although Keylon still has the points lead, Livesay is closing the gap.  Don’t forget that only the top 5 of the first 11 races count towards the championship!  As we head towards summer we will also begin to see some of the riders who have been busy chasing the AMA Supercross dream in East Coast Lites, and that should really jumble up the competition for the next round.

Author: Gifford Quast

By Tyler