Team Suzuki Press Office – March 23.
Broc Tickle scored a solid seventh-place finish in Saturday night’s 12th round of the Monster Energy Supercross AMA/ FIM World Supercross Championship at Detroit’s Ford Field Stadium.
The top-seven showing was the RCH Soaring Eagle/ Jimmy Johns/ Suzuki Factory rider’s seventh consecutive top-10 placing and his ninth of the season. The Holly, Michigan rider remains 10th in the points-standings and trails ninth-place Andrew Short by two points heading into next weekend’s next stop in St. Louis.
Tickle and his #20 RM-Z450 finished fifth in the night’s second 450SX heat race and transferred to the ‘Main’ via a solid second-placed-finish in his semi-final: He said: “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.
“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 Event 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 team-mate Ken Roczen was side-lined for the third straight race while he recovers from an ankle injury. Roczen is scheduled to return to the seat of his #94 Suzuki RM-Z450 for the Houston Supercross on April 11th.
“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.”
Detroit 450 Supercross Results: 1. Eli Tomac (Honda), 2. Ryan Dungey (KTM), 3. Cole Seely (Honda), 4. Chad Reed (Kawasaki), 5. Davi Millsaps (Kawasaki), 6. Josh Grant (Kawasaki), 7. Broc Tickle (RCH Suzuki), 8. Blake Baggett (Yoshimura Suzuki), 9. Andrew Short (KTM), 10. Justin Brayton (KTM).
