RCH Soaring Eagle Suzuki Team in the driver’s seat at Ford Field.
The following is from RCH Soaring Eagle Suzuki:
Detroit, MI (March 17, 2014) – Not only is RCH Soaring Eagle Supercross team rider Broc Tickle from nearby Holly, Michigan, the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort is located in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, so the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort decided to really make a statement and partnered with Feld Motor Sports to host Supercross racing’s return to the Motor City.
The RCH Soaring Eagle team made a hometown fashion statement in the opening ceremonies as Tickle swapped his traditional Fox MX jersey for a #20 Barry Sanders Detroit Lions jersey. Hill made an impression by riding down through the stands on his #75 RCH Suzuki.
Afternoon qualifying saw Hill just edge hometown boy Tickle by .12 of a second as both of the teammates made the evening racing program with lap times well inside the top 10 (only the top 40 fastest qualify for the evening racing program). The evening started off with a little more TV time for Tickle as Fox Sports reporter Jenny Taft interviewed him. With more than 85 friends and family members in the stands, not to mention the event’s title sponsor watching, Tickle wanted to do even better than last week’s career best fourth-place finish.
“I’m really looking forward to tonight,” Tickle told Taft and the TV audience. “All my family is here, and on top of that we have our title sponsor Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort, so I’m looking to keep building that momentum like I have the past couple of weeks and hopefully get some holeshots tonight.”
Although Hill didn’t have his entire family in the grandstands, he still wanted to do well for the team’s sponsors. Heat 1 had Hill squaring off against fastest qualifier of the day, James Stewart and holeshot artist Mike Alessi, also mounted on Suzukis. Despite getting boxed out at the start, Hill quickly moved into fourth by the end of the first lap. By the second lap, he slashed past Justin Brayton for third spot.
Tickle didn’t get the start he wanted in Heat 2. Instead he ended up the first lap a distant seventh and only climbed to fifth by the last lap. That meant a trip to the Semis. Tickle went into Semi 2, gated top five and quickly moved into second. After chasing Andrew Short for much of the race, Tickle set up a dramatic pass attempt in the final turn, but came up just short of Short to finish second and make the Main.
The 450 Main saw both RCH Soaring Eagle Suzuki Team riders finish inside the top 10 of the fiercely competitive field. Hill had a better start than Tickle, finishing the first lap in seventh, dicing with Short, while Tickle was back in ninth after getting squeezed off at the start. However, Tickle passed privateer Suzuki rider Weston Peick for 10th place on lap three.
“I was ninth on the start and rode really cautiously for the first five laps,” Tickle said. “I finally got into the flow and started picking guys off.”
By lap seven, the RCH Soaring Eagle teammates were battling each other for seventh.
“I got into into sixth and then was closing the gap on fifth, then I started losing my flow,” Tickle said. “I tried to run it in on Barcia on the last lap, but couldn’t make it stick. Still, I’m pumped with sixth and how I rode through the pack.”
At the finish, Honda rider Justin Barcia just beat Tickle to the line.
Meanwhile, Hill had a much better Main event than he had in Daytona, finishing a season-high eighth.
“I rounded the first turn in sixth or seventh,” Hill said. “Then the night just kind of turned into a full on battle! It went back and forth and I made my way up pretty far at one point, but made a couple of mistakes.”
Tickle moves up to eighth in the rider point standings and Hill now holds 13th overall with six races left in the season.
After rolling out of the Motor City, the RCH Racing Soaring Eagle team heads north of the border to the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada for round 12 of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series on March 22.
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