ANTHONY BOURDON - GRIT 238 250SX

ANTHONY BOURDON | GRIT-238 | 250 SX

Suzuki's Anthony Bourdon had been diligently preparing to continuously move forward throughout the 2023 SX season. And so far, he'd done that; with countless instances of residing inside the top-ten, which were destined to be sustained at Anaheim 2 as well. After hovering at the front of the pack for practice, Bourdon appeared "at home" on the dry soil of this particular weekend. His confidence then translated into the main events that followed, where he dove into the opening corner of turn number one with his expectations at their highest. Rounding the first few laps near a standing of seventh, his 250F machine appeared to be tracking rather well through the rolling left-handed corner. Flowing through the midline while making sure to keep Honda's Carson Mumford behind him to the best of his ability. Bourdon was aware of numerous variables while powering forward to the start straightaway. Continuously leaping from plateau to plateau in one of the technical rhythm sections, he acknowledged that the concluding single was becoming rather sharp and could cause him to drift wide in the latter stages of the main event if he wasn't careful. Luckily, he remained intact and fluid through the eighth and ninth minutes, to arrive at the checkered flag in eighth. The second round of racing was then upon him, and after inhaling while simultaneously clicking into gear, he unleashed an abundance of startling speed amongst the first few laps. The whoops could hardly be recognized, therefore his lines of tripling amongst jagged edges were paramount while residing in a tremendous standing of fourth. He was excelling with a large gap on the rest of his competitors, but the majority of the pack were following the leaders of the race, including RJ Hampshire and Levi Kitchen who were flourishing, but Bourdon couldn't be discredited. He was composed and appeared comfortable pushing the envelope on the slick surface, diving into the start straightaway area with the bike rolling at a "lugging" RPM per se...and maintaining an imminent throttle twist, all the way to the finish line. Though passed by various factory riders Jo Shimoda and Julien Beaumer in the final stages, his sustaining of the sixth-place residency was tremendous as the checkered flag was thrown The final battle for a top-ten overall was now at stake, and the Frenchman was willing to do whatever necessary in order to obtain it. The rear wheel would skate around the gradual right-handed corner following the latter whoop section, where he jumped onto the start straightaway while crouching aerodynamically...hoping to do everything possible in order to break away from Honda's Mumford who was only bike lengths behind his rear wheel. Bourdon stayed calm under pressure however knowing that the bigger picture was to score as many points as possible...therefore as the final three laps came to fruition, despite being bar-to-bar with athletes like RJ Hampshire and Julien Beaumer, he would secure another finish of eighth - residing in sixth overall, which was a tremendous feat given the magnitude of competition!

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