On The Pegs July 2019 - Volume 4 - Issue 7 | Page 82

On The Pegs
opening lap. After finishing seventh overall the previous
day, Alex Niederer elevated his game on Sunday and
put his GasGas North America-backed GasGas TXT 300
into provisional second place with 34 points. Davis was
one point back with 35, while Blanc-Gonnet was next
with 38.
Smage trimmed his second lap down to just nine
points, while Niederer came in at 19. Meanwhile, Vertigo
USA’s David Avendano had 26, Blanc-Gonnet had 29
and Davis had 36.
Smage sealed the deal on the final lap, where he
dropped a meager seven points for a total of 33 for the
day.
“Early on I wasn’t confident in the more danger-
ous sections and I was a little bit worried about trying
them,” said Smage. “I just wasn’t quite feeling it early
on, but about midway through the first lap I kind of re-
ally tried hard to turn that around and started riding like
myself again and having confidence in the sections and
with the bike. There were a few that were on the edge
for sure, and some really difficult ones, but overall I’m
happy with the way I turned things around.”
Alex Niederer’s 23-point lap was one point less than
Avendano’s 24 and put the GasGas rider solidly into
second overall for the day with a total of 76. Avendano
rounded out the podium with a total of 91 points in the
extremely high scoring event. The seven-time Venezu-
elan champion DNFed Saturday’s event with an electri-
cal problem.
Blanc-Gonnet and Davis rounded out Sunday’s top
five, with Blanc-Gonnet missing the podium by a single
point with a 92 total for the day. Meanwhile, Davis was
further back at 107.
Myers dropped to sixth overall with 119 points, while
Roper missed out on a sixth-straight fifth place finish by
placing eighth overall at 124 points.
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