Team Suzuki Press Office – April 29.

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RCH Racing Suzuki’s Josh Hill raced to his best result of the AMA/ FIM World Supercross Championship at Saturday’s penultimate round at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, scoring seventh in the 450 Main Event.

Hill, who missed the opening five rounds with injury incurred at the opening event at Anaheim, ran in the top-10 throughout the 20-lap Main aboard his #75 Dodge/ Sycuan Casino/ RCH Racing/ Bel-Ray/ Suzuki RM-Z450 as team mate Broc Tickle finished his 16th consecutive Main Event with 11th.

Hill was seventh fastest in the afternoon timed practice and Tickle eighth; both riders using aggressive starts in their respective Heat Races to easily transfer to the Main. Hill finished third in Heat 2 while Tickle was fourth in Heat 1.

In the Main Event, Hill was running ninth after the first lap, moved into seventh on Lap 8 and maintained the position the rest of the race.

Said Hill: “I got a decent start in the Main and made a few quick passes to gain some spots. I got up into the top-10 early and that helped. The race start was so hard if you were starting outside of the first few gates because it was such a short straightaway and tight left-hand turn. Guys would just bang into each other. Riders with the first eight gate picks chose the inside. It was a battle.”

Tickle looked to be on his way to his ninth top-10 Main Event finish until a mishap on Lap 10 in the tough whoops section dropped the RCH rider seven spots to 17th. The Michigan native raced the next nine laps incident-free and battled his way back to 11th.

“It was a solid start in the Main until I went down,” said Tickle. “I was riding ninth and about to pass Andrew Short but skipped over a couple of the whoops and crashed pretty good. So I got up, got in behind Trey Canard and just started picking guys off that I had lost positions to earlier.”

The 2013 Monster Energy AMA/ FIM World Supercross Series concludes next weekend at round 17 in Las Vegas.

Race Results: 1. Ryan Villopoto (Kawasaki), 2. Davi Millsaps (Rockstar Energy Suzuki), 3. Ryan Dungey (KTM), 4. Trey Canard (Honda), 5. Justin Barcia (Honda), 6. Justin Brayton (Yamaha), 7. Josh Hill (RCH Racing Suzuki), 8. Andrew Short (KTM), 9. Weston Peick (Suzuki), 10. Chad Reed (Honda), 11. Broc Tickle (RCH Racing Suzuki).

Series Points (after 16 of 17 rounds): CLICK HERE

Author

Dan Lamb is a 12+ year journalist and the owner of MotoXAddicts.