Slaw Dog
As I pointed out yesterday, Aaron Plessinger, to me anyways, was the biggest surprise of Oakland. Not because I didn’t believe AP would get to this point, but because his turnaround happened so quickly.
Check out his results entering the Oakland main. Good? Sure, but nothing that said he’d grab his second career podium.
- Qualified 19th at A1.
- Finished 4th in his heat race at A1.
- Finished 9th in the main at A1.
- Qualified 12th at Oakland.
- Finished 3rd in his heat race at Oakland.
Of course, we all know Plessinger made a big move this off-season, going from Monster Energy Yamaha (the only brand he’d ridden for during his pro career) to Red Bull KTM. Despite a few months of off-season testing, that doesn’t mean you’ll have everything in the right place come the opener.
What did AP and KTM change? Well, according to AP, his entire suspension setup.
“Umm, pretty much my whole setup,” he said in the post-race press conference. “My whole suspension setup . I don’t really know specifics but everything suspension-wise was swapped up and changed a little bit. Last week was a little weird for me, but yeah we rebounded.”
Credit to the team and AP for not just thinking it was opening round jitters. Nope, they spotted something they didn’t like and went to work. And guess what? It worked!
Main image: KTM Images
