Slaw Dog
Prior to Anaheim 2, it had been a rough start to 2023 for Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Jason Anderson. After finishing 2022 with seven wins and finishing second in points to Eli Tomac, Anderson was a pre-season title favorite. So it was strange to see him start the season 7-7 and make a few mistakes that hindered his results.
“Yeah, the first two rounds have been really tough on me, just crashes on my own,” he said after Anaheim 2. “First race [Anaheim 1] I had a big crash in practice. Last weekend I felt like I rode pretty good, I felt like I was in no-man’s land, and I threw away a podium with eight minutes to go. Pushed the front again. Tonight, in that last race I had some PTSD when I was in a podium position, and you don’t want to throw those away. Now I want to build from here. I want to be where Chase [Sexton] is. We’ll keep working hard to get here.”
Anderson’s season also started with a bit of a controversy with Justin Barcia. In the first 450SX heat of the night in San Diego, Anderson made a pass on Barcia with Bam hitting the deck. It was actually the same corner that Barcia passed Chase Sexton in the main with Sexton going down.
Anyway, Anderson and Barcia apparently had some words and Anderson sent out a Tweet regarding the incident.
Barcia was asked about the move in the post-race press conference and said he didn’t have a problem with it and that he doesn’t want to engage in a Twitter war.
Following Anaheim 2, where Anderson finished second overall for his first podium of the season, he was asked about it:
Last week we had a field day in this press conference over your tweet regarding Justin Barcia. I think you took it down. You got into it with Barcia in the heat race last week. Did that impact you at all in last week’s main event, or tonight?
Yeah….it’s whatever. Obviously, I did tweet that and the AMA came over and asked me to take it down. That kind of surprised me, but I was just like, “I need to focus on this main event right now.” Me and him, we race hard, and I don’t think either of us have room to complain about anything that goes down. I’m trying to move forward and be the best me, regardless of what happens. For us, we have to put that behind us and move forward, that’s one of the mental things we have to deal with in our career. Yeah, I guess it was a little entertaining for you guys, but for us we’re just working hard and trying to be our best us, and we do take everything personal every time because there’s a lot at stake.
So there you have it.
Main image: Kawasaki
