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Monster Energy Pro Circuit Toronto Race Report
Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki’s Christophe Pourcel clinches the Overall 2009 Eastern Regional Supercross Lites Title with win at Toronto
CORONA, Calif., (March 30, 2009) – Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki’s Christophe Pourcel has clinched the overall (ESX) championship, winning this past weekend’s Toronto Lites class main event , and giving Mitch Payton’s team its 24th championship with one ESX Lites race remaining on the 2009 Monster AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship, schedule.
Pourcel, who was absolutely masterful in his performance at Toronto’s Rogers Center, topped Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki teammate Austin Stroupe – who placed 2nd at Toronto.
The hook up with Monster/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki and me made for a very good team,” said the Frenchman Pourcel. “Everybody pushed me and Kawasaki was behind me every time. I was able to come back from an injury so yeah, it’s good.”
Entering the first heat race with the third-fastest qualifying practice time (53.476) – which was a second-and-a-half slower than Stroupe’s top Lites class practice time – Pourcel made it very clear right away that he was going to do everything in his power to get the bad luck monkey off his back that had dogged him the past couple weeks.
Getting out in 2nd place in his heat, before you could say “Pro Circuit-tuned KX250F,” Pourcel had passed Kyle Keylon and was in 1st place and haulin’ – bringing home the heat one win by three seconds over former ESX champ Branden Jesseman.
I’m really happy tonight,” said Pourcel of his third heat race win of the season. “I got up good on the start and I will try to do that in the main as well.”
In the second Lites heat race at Toronto Stroupe got held up at the start, a race that was led momentarily by Monster Energy/Cernic’s/Kawasaki’s #82, Jack Carpenter. Coming back from around 5th place, Stroupe got on his dragon and tripled past rival Nico Izzi in a section where Izzi could only manage to double. Stroupe, now in 2nd place, then got up on heat leader Matt Lemoine and was poised to pass him in the same section where he blitzed past Izzi – but was held up due to yellow flags (downed rider) and had to back off his charge, settling for 2nd in his heat.
With his mom in from France to cheer him on in the Toronto SX Lites main, Pourcel pulled another great start and passed Broc Tickle for the lead two turns into the contest. Stroupe would get held up a bit and emerged in around 8th place after the first lap.
By the third lap Stroupe had made his way up to 3rd place and was running a 10th –of-a-second faster than Pourcel, but having to deal with traffic. Stroupe would get by Tickle by lap five for 2nd place, but was still some 5.3 seconds behind Pourcel.
From laps eight through 15 Pourcel would keep that five-second lead constant, even lapping Izzi with four laps to go. And while Stroupe would hold strong onto 2nd place, it was Pourcel’s fist that would be thrust into the air when the checkers flew on the finish line jump.
Next up for Monster Energy’s Supercross racers is round 14 of Monster Energy Supercross at Jacksonville’s (Fla.) Municipal Stadium (April 4th).
Joining Monster Energy in sponsoring the Pro Circuit/Kawasaki squad for 2009 are: Thor, Terminal Velocity Processing, Parts Unlimited, Vans, Scott, Maxima, Asterisk, N-Style, Alpinestars, NGK, PPG, DP, JE Pistons, Mechanix, RK, Renthal, Twin Air, VP, Bridgestone, Braking, Excel, Troy Lee Designs, Hinson, Athena, Ogio, Showa, Sunline, CMI, UFO, BH Bikes and WRP.
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