Hot off his Atlanta 250 Supercross Win, Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Martin Davalos talks about how it felt to finally break down the wall.
The following is from Kawasaki:
Irvine, Calif. (February 24, 2014) – Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki continued its dominance of the 250SX class in Atlanta by capturing their fourth straight main event win on Saturday. Martin Davalos became the third consecutive rider to achieve his first professional win following Justin Hill in San Diego and Adam Cianciarulo in Dallas. Cianciarulo bounced back from qualifying through the LCQ to finish second and remain in the points lead, while Blake Baggett fought through the field to finish fifth.
Long Time Coming
In his ninth professional year of supercross, Davalos was finally able to capture his first professional 250SX class win. Davalos has been known for his supercross skills since his rookie debut in 2006, but the stars had yet to align until Saturday night. For two consecutive weekends the Ecuadorian has been fastest qualifier and won his heat race and now has the allusive main event win he has been chasing. Davalos took the lead coming into the second turn and never looked back leading wire-to-wire.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Davalos said. “It’s been a long time coming and I couldn’t have done it without everyone who has stuck behind me all this time. My family is here from Ecuador, which means the world to me. People don’t realize what I’ve done to commit to chasing this dream.”
Determined
Throughout qualifying the rookie Cianciarulo did not seem affected by the weight of the red plates on his KX250F. It wasn’t until the gate dropped for the heat race that he found himself on the ground twice and was forced to the LCQ. Appearing more like a veteran than a rookie, AC grabbed the holeshot and won his spot into the main event without falter. Lining up outside like he did in the LCQ, he was able to grab another holeshot and battled for the lead heading into the next turn. He stayed on the heels of Davalos for the full 15 laps, but could not close the gap.
“I made my first rookie mistakes tonight,” Cianciarulo said. “I saw the flashing lights for the caution during the main and thought I had to roll the section. I lost a lot of time on Martin. I won’t be making that mistake again. But considering how the night started, I’m happy to be on the podium and stoked for Martin and the team.”
Moving Forward
Baggett was strong and confident in Atlanta and grabbed his first heat race win of the season right off the bat. In the main event he got pushed around on the start and found himself last on the start straight. Undeterred, Baggett progressively moved through the field and crossed the finish line in fifth place.
“Tonight wasn’t what we wanted,” Baggett said. “That said, I salvaged a good amount of points and have to look at it that way. We’re still sitting third behind Adam and Martin, and we’ll be back next week.”
Nerves
Davalos has led many supercross main events, including last weekend in Dallas, but misfortune had always found him. After establishing himself out front and building a gap on Cianciarulo, the nerves started to get to him. He backed down his speed to play it safe, but that almost cost him when a mistake nearly put him on the ground with one lap remaining.
“I knew I had a good gap on Adam and didn’t want to take any chances,” Davalos said. “But I was cruising too much and just about went down! I’m happy to get this out of the way and continue this success each weekend.”
Monster Energy Supercross continues its Eastern swing in one weeks time returning to Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana next Saturday.
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