Jay Wilson turned in his best performance of the Australian Supercross Championship by finishing third in the SX2 (250cc) class at the final round of the series, held at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne.
Wilson, the 2018 SX2 champ, has had a frustrating season so far, just missing the podium at the opening four rounds despite winning races and being in contention throughout. But, he put all that behind him on the weekend to make the most of a big occasion when supercross hit prime time in the city of Melbourne.
With the Triple Crown format again is use over the weekend where riders faced three, seven lap races with just five minutes break in between, Wilson carded 3-2-3 results to take third on the night and move to fourth in the final championship standings.
It was a spirited fight all night from Wilson has he often had to over come average starts and poor track position in the early stages of each race to charge his way through a highly competitive SX2 field. He mixed it up with some established name riders from the US and took the challenge up to them in every race.
Unfortunately, it wasn‰Ûªt enough to retain his SX2 number one plate, but he went down all guns blazing and the podium on the night was a positive way to finish the championship.
‰ÛÏTonight my mentality was that I had nothing to lose. I was fifth coming into the final round and even if I had a shocker, it wouldn‰Ûªt have done much for the overall result, so I just laid it all on the line and see what happened.
‰ÛÏI didn‰Ûªt get great starts all night and that was my fault, my reaction time at the gate was terrible but I managed to make some passes only to get near the front but run out of time. But, I feel pretty good with how I raced tonight and just wished I had of taken that mentality in from round one.
‰ÛÏThe team did a great job as always and the bike was perfect. The Yamalube Yamaha Racing team put in a big effort and it was frustrating not to be able to get them on the podium until now in this series. Thanks to my mechanic, Mike Ward, his dedication and passion is unrivalled and while we didn‰Ûªt get the championship back, we gave it a good shake,‰Û
