Troy Dog
The battle in the second 250 Moto at Ironman was an instant classic between Haiden Deegan and Tom Vialle, while it lasted.
Deegan and Vialle went at it pretty good for a few laps of the race and at one point the two made contact in the turn after the finish.
Eventually Deegan would outlast the Red Bull KTM athlete for the race win, but as a result of his 11th in the first moto, he wouldn’t be able to win the overall. Vialle won the day with 1-4 scores. It was surprisingly his first overall win of the season.
First let’s revisit that fiver that Deegan hit after his pass on Chance Hymas…
Now here is some of that battle with Vialle.
Deegan and Vialle raced one another hard and at the end of it it was nice to see Vialle’s take on the battle in the post race press conference.
“It was pretty cool actually, we did like maybe two or three laps together and he passed me right after the mechanic (area) and I passed him right back in the next corner,” Vialle said.
It’s interesting to hear Vialle speak about his first overall win on the season. He said that he knew Deegan had finished 11th in the first moto, but he didn’t really know about the overall. In fact Vialle admitted that he got tired at the end of the race, which saw him end up fourth, which was obviously good enough for the win.
“It was a nice battle I think the track is nice for that. You can really change your line and it was cool. I got a little bit tired the last ten minutes,” Vialle said. “I obviously really wanted to try and keep with Haiden, but I got a little bit tired. I couldn’t do better than fourth in the second moto.”
Respect to Vialle for being honest and open about getting tired. I was tired just watching the race from my couch in the ice cold air conditioning.
With Chase Sexton winning the 450 Pro Motocross Championship and Aaron Plessinger going 2-2 for second overall, it was a big day for the Red Bull KTM Team. Even rookie JuJu Beaumer got into the mix by finishing 11th in the series and earning the AMA Motocross Rookie of the Year Award. That will go nicely on his mantle next to his SX Rookie of the Year Honors.
Vialle heads into the SMX Playoffs as a #3 seed behind Haiden Deegan and Levi Kitchen.
