Tickle Seventh at Ford Field

2015-03-23 15:52
Broc Tickle, rider of the No. 20 RCH Soaring Eagle/Jimmy Johns/Suzuki Factory Racing RM-Z450, forged a solid seventh-place finish in Saturday night’s Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship, at Detroit’s Ford Field.

The top-seven showing was Tickle’s seventh consecutive top 10 and ninth of the season. The Holly, Mich., rider remains 10th in points and trails ninth-place Andrew Short by two heading into next week’s stop in St. Louis.

Tickle finished fifth in the night’s second 450SX heat race and transferred to the main via a solid second-place finish in his semifinal.

“I feel like I struggled with the same things I did the last couple of weekends but as a whole, we had a decent night,” explained Tickle. “I was a little slow in a couple segments during practice so we made some changes for the heat race and the semi and we definitely went in the right direction. We made another change for the main and that was even better so we made progress all day. We tried some stuff with the starts and that didn’t really work. That’s something I need to work on so I can be better out of the gate and closer to the front. I think that’s what held me back in the main event.

“As a team, we’re going to go back to the basics this week and work on starts. Bottom line is that I need to put together better starts to get better results. When I have a bad start, I get into a place where everyone runs in the same position all night long and that puts me in a bind. I need to get out front when the gate drops and see what we can do from there.”

Tickle’s RCH stablemate Ken Roczen was sidelined for the third straight race while he recovers from an ankle injury. Roczen is scheduled to return to the seat of his No. 94 Suzuki RM-Z450 for the Houston Supercross on April 11.

“It was a good night for Broc,” commented RCH co-owner Carey Hart following the event. “There’s no question that he has the speed. We just have to get him out of the gate and get him towards the front of the pack off the start. I think once that starts to click, we’ll see him on the podium. That’s what the team is going to work on this week. It’s those first couple of laps that are always so important. Broc has to keep up that sprint pace when he gets out of the gate so he can separate himself and run up front. Hopefully, Ken will be back on the bike in the near future. We’ll start by getting him going on the outdoor track, integrate him into Supercross and have him on the gate in Houston.”

Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship, heads to the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis this weekend for Round 13 of the 2015 Championship. The race will be televised live on Fox Sports 1 Saturday, March 28 beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 5 p.m. Pacific.

Source: RCH Racing

Click here to visit our forums to discuss this story