The team celebrates the podium with Broc. When the Hart & Huntington team became RCH, Broc Tickle was the teams first hire.
Since winning the 2011 250SX Western Regional Supercross Championship and graduating to the 450SX class, RCH / Yoshimura / Suzuki’s Broc Tickle has been a top ten 450SX guy with some occasional top five finishes and two fourth place finishes on his resume. 2017 had thus far been very reminiscent to years past for Broc, but on Saturday night in Toronto, something clicked and the #20—whose average finish in 2017 had been 11.5 heading into round nine—finally broke through for his first ever 450SX main event podium finish.
The Toronto circuit seemed to gel with the rider from Michigan and he found himself high up on the leaderboard throughout the final qualifying session. He ended up qualifying for the night show with the fifth fastest overall time and took that confidence into the heat races. In his heat race, he finished fifth, but a run in with Justin Barcia that led to a heated physical discussion in the tunnel between Broc and Bam Bam turned into a penalty that gave Broc the far outside gate for the semi race. Even with the penalty and the far outside gate that came with it, Broc ripped a start in his semi and went wire-to-wire for the win.
In the main, Broc grabbed a third place start and moved up to second on lap five when Blake Baggett crashed and gave the position away. With Eli Tomac checked out up front and a nice gap back to third, it was basically a day at the test track with Broc as he rode all alone for the next nine or ten laps until Ryan Dungey showed up and wanted the extra two points for a second place finish. Broc rode strong, but Dungey had come from tenth and the pace of the #1 carried him around the #20 with four laps to go.
After Broc was done celebrating his first ever podium, he sat down for a post race press conference and answered some questions.
Broc, congratulations. As far as the main event itself goes, you rode most of it alone. What were you thinking for about a fifteen-minute block there where you were pretty much had a gap in front of you, behind you and you were all by yourself. What was going through your mind?
I needed to focus on myself, and I knew that. I mean I’ve been doing this for a while now. I got off to a good start and knew I just needed to put in the laps I needed to. The track was tough tonight. It was all about hitting your lines, jumping the jumps and staying smooth and not panicking. For me, that’s all I tried to focus on and it worked out. Ryan got around me with I think five or six laps to go, and that honestly helped me a little bit get back in a little groove because I kind of tightened up there at the end.
Around this point every year you build and build and build and we hit this point and you hit your best point. Is that everything falls into stride a coincidence you feel, or do you think you have to build and figure everything out over those first few weeks?
Obviously, I don’t want to say that’s true, but I mean it seems to happen. I had the best offseason I’ve ever had and put in a lot of work with the team and made a lot of progress for myself and the bike. I felt like we came into A1 like ready, and I didn’t want to put pressure on myself but I felt like I could be up here. I know a lot of guys are hurt right now, but I feel like it’s realistic for myself to believe I should be up here. For me, it was a struggle obviously until now, but the start is where I’ve been slacking and tonight I did all three starts and I was there. Just got to keep that going and stay focused on myself and hit my marks every single time I go to the track. I have the speed and I can do it, I feel like. Every weekend it’s going to be a little different. This guy’s track or this guy’s track. It just depends on how you feel on the weekend and taking advantage of it.
There was some talk towards the end of last season—or the end of outdoors—that maybe RCH as a team might not be around this year. What does it mean to you to get your career best finish with this team that has stuck by you for a good number of years now?
I’ve been with the team ever since they started, so it’s been awesome. We’ve made progress every year, and it’s been really good. I got two podiums last year in outdoors, and that was awesome. Then I got hurt, unfortunately. The whole off-season, it was the best we’ve ever had as a team. We put in a lot of work and finally now it’s showing. I’m stoked and happy to be where I’m at.
Sitting in second place—probably a lot of things to think about while you’re there by yourself—then up comes the number one machine. What was going through your head there when you had about five seconds on the guy?
I was trying to focus on myself and hit the lines that I needed to. I felt like in certain areas of the track I was pretty good and then other areas of the track I kind of struggled. I saw Blake [Baggett] too behind him. So I knew I needed to go if he was going to get around me. Ryan [Dungey] made the pass down the mechanics area, and honestly, it helped me get into a flow. I caught onto some of his lines and it helped me there finish out the main and not struggle where I was struggling earlier.
Entering the weekend—I think five of the eight rounds—the eventual winner has led every lap. Are starts more important this year and if so, why?
You can look at results from last week and you can answer that yourself. I feel like last week I rode the worst I’ve rode just because I got a bad start. I got 14th and I tried. Tonight I get a good start and I put myself in a position to ride like myself. That’s what it comes down to. All of us from I think qualifying—I don’t know about tonight—every weekend from third, fourth to fourteenth is one second. That on the track if you’re out front running like I was tonight it’s easy. But if you’re in the back worrying about the guy behind you, the guy in front of you, trying to pass this guy, trying to pass that guy, you can’t really do what you want to. Definitely was a lot easier to get up front and put in some laps that I felt like I was comfortable doing.
Photos by: Suzuki Racing
