Although Team Rockstar Energy/OTSFF/Yamaha/Motovan.com’s Bobby Kiniry was unable to defend his 2012 Calgary win this past Sunday, it wasn’t for lack of effort. As we’ve come to expect from the amicable American, when unleashed on a motocross track he gives it 110% each and every time.
In what transpired to be the toughest day of MX1 racing so far this season, producing epic battles for position all through the top-10, Kiniry finished Round 3 of the CMRC Motocross Nationals at Wild Rose MX Park with a convincing second overall on the strength of 3-2 motos.
Kiniry’s MX2 teammate, Richard Grey, also earned his bread and butter to deliver 9-9 motos, which netted him seventh overall on the day, keeping his top-10 finishes intact for the first three rounds of the title hunt.
In the first MX1 moto, Kiniry got off to a lukewarm start on the Wild Rose concrete starting pad, negotiating turn one around 12th place. By the midway point, recording the fastest lap times on his YZ450F, he had soldiered his way past fifth place running Tyler Medaglia.
As the moto wound down Kiniry was able to displace Morgan Burger for third to then go after Jeremy Medaglia, who was some distance behind front-runner Brett Metcalfe. With time running out Kiniry was unable to challenge Medaglia for second place, taking third at the checkered flag.
The start of the second moto went much more smoothly for Kiniry, who dove into the first turn behind holeshooter Ross Johnson. Kiniry wasted little time to relieve Johnson of the lead, which he would sustain until the halfway mark of the moto.
A few laps later, J. Medaglia, Burger, and Teddy Maier had also stuck a pass on Johnson and became locked in a dogfight over second position, to soon be joined by Metcalfe, who had started just outside the top-10. The series points leader worked his way past Maier, Burger, and Medaglia, to then start challenging Kiniry for the lead. Although Kiniry wouldn’t give an inch, Metcalfe eventually managed to get by him.
Until the end of the moto Kiniry kept hounding Metcalfe in a bid to reclaim the lead, while Metcalfe’s teammate Maier dogged Kiniry in a bid to displace him from second place. For the first time this season the final moto of the day proved to be on the edge racing for the lead with the three front-runners clocking nearly identical top speeds.
But while Kiniry managed to keep an unrelenting Maier behind him, he was unable to stick a pass on Metcalfe, finishing the moto in second place one second behind Metcalfe and one ahead of Maier.
“I would have been happier if I could have repeated as track champ, but I’m happy with the way I rode today, and the way my bike performed. I felt totally comfortable. Everybody raced so hard today you knew that regardless of where you finished, you had earned that position and you had the satisfaction of having given it your best shot,” Kiniry said.
The first MX2 moto start proved to be a less than favourable for Grey, who spun off the gate, finding himself dead last going into turn one. One lap later, he had placed his potent YZ250F into the top-20. He spent the rest of the moto slicing and dicing his way past the riders that separated him from a top-10 finish, clearing the task in the closing laps to claim ninth at the checkered flag.
The second moto was more or less a rerun of the first, with Grey again pulling off a back of the pack start. As in the MX1 class, racing was at express train speeds and Grey had to dig deep to make his way into the top-10. A ninth place at the finish line was the result, seventh overall on the day his reward.
“I didn’t finish as high today as last Sunday, but I still managed to come out of the motos with the same overall, so that part I like. I missed both starts and that cost me big time as far as being able to improve my overall into a top-five finish. That part I didn’t like. I got some work ahead of me, but I know I’m capable of finishing top-five,” Grey said.
| MX1 Points After 3 of 9 Rounds | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Brett Metcalfe | 144 |
| 2. | Tyler Medaglia | 109 |
| 3. | Bobby Kiniry | 107 |
| 4. | Morgan Burger | 93 |
| 5. | Teddy Maier | 92 |
| 6. | Jeremy Medaglia | 89 |
| 7. | Gavin Gracyk | 77 |
| 8. | Brock Hoyer | 76 |
| 9. | Ross Johnson | 51 |
| 10. | Colton Facciotti | 50 |
| MX2 Points After 3 of 9 Rounds | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Austin Politelli | 147 |
| 2. | Topher Ingalls | 116 |
| 3. | Brad Nauditt | 111 |
| 4. | Kaven Benoit | 107 |
| 5. | Joshua Clark | 100 |
| 6. | Jared Allison | 85 |
| 7. | Richard Grey | 81 |
| 8. | Nathan Bles | 66 |
| 9. | Kyle Swanson | 62 |
| 10. | Blake Savage | 60 |
The CMRC Motocross Nationals head to northern Alberta, where Castrol Raceway in Edmonton will host Round 4, the final leg of the western tour, on Sunday, June 23rd.