Salt Lake City SX: ‘I didn’t need Shimoda to win’ – Nichols

Monster Star Yamaha’s Colt Nichols only needs three points from the final Supercross round in Salt Lake City to bag the 250SX East title but says he could have done without rival Jo Shimoda winning on Saturday night in Utah.

Qualifying fourth, Nichols came out swinging in his heat race, leading from start to finish for a dominant victory. Unfortunately, he was unable to pull off a repeat in the Main Event and found himself sixth after the first lap. The red-plate holder rode a smart race and worked his way to fourth.

Nichols put the pressure on and made the pass for third after his competitor went wide into the hay bales. He closed the gap on the leaders but ran out of time and had to settle for the final spot on the podium.

Title rival and team-mate Christian Craig broke his leg in qualifying is out of action for the final, leaving Nichols a relative cruise on Saturday.

“I don’t even know what to say. It was a good night, getting on the podium, so that’s always awesome,” said Nichols. It’s just been a roller coaster of emotions kind of day, we came into this battling my teammate and we were looking to have two really good races here in Salt Lake City, me and him going head-to-head with only eight points separating us, so it was unfortunate that he crashed out and ended up hurting his ankle. That just puts you in a weird spot.

“I needed to execute a little better in the main and I didn’t. I got a horrible start which made it hard on myself and I had to come through the pack. I felt like I didn’t start riding very well until about 10 minutes into that main and then I started to get going.

“I just waited around too much. In order to wrap it up tonight, the one guy I didn’t need to win was Jo, and he did. Looking at the big picture it’s good, though. If you would have told me I would have had a 23-point lead going into the final round, I’d be pumped. So overall, it’s awesome to be so close. We’ll try again next weekend.”

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