A crash off the gates sent Levi Kitchen to the ground, but he recovered and posted the fastest lap in the first half of the session. Haiden Deegan (1:12.069) picked up the pace in the second half and overtook Kitchen on the final lap.
“I feel good,” Deegan said. “It should be a good day. Get a good start and see how it goes.”
At the gate drop, Maximus Vohland bounced off Deegan in the practice start and was propelled halfway across the lane. He clipped Seth Hammaker and dropped Kitchen before the field made its way to Turn 1.
Vohland was helped off the track by the Alpinestars Medical team, holding his arm in obvious pain. He joins Austin Forkner on the questionable list for the evening feature.
Kitchen’s lap of 1:12.238 was fast enough to land second in the session and overall. Kitchen crashed a second time with three minutes on the clock.
Ryder DiFrancesco (1:12.316) improved over his first qualification speed to advance to third overall.
Hammaker (1:12.332) survived the first lap contact to land fourth on the chart.
Tom Vialle made his presence known with a lap of 1:12.450 to slot into fifth.
Qualification 2 Results
Combined Qualification
Qualification 1
Jo Shimoda cannot afford to allow Haiden Deegan to stretch his points’ advantage. More importantly, he cannot allow the two-time defending champion to believe he is unbeatable.
Shimoda posted the fastest lap in the first qualification session with a lap of 1:13.351, but that was only 0.070 seconds faster than his principal rival.
Deegan (1:13.421) does not always show his potential in qualification, so the close proximity to the leader is a mental victory.
Nate Thrasher (1:13.515) was another 0.094 seconds behind Deegan and with Qualification 2 still on the horizon, he has a shot at improving and scoring the overall fastest time.
Fourth-place Cole Davies (1:13.861) and Ryder DiFrancesco (1:13.892) rounded out the top five. The five fastest riders were separated by a little more than one-half second (0.541).
Wild Card Race
Daxton Bennick won the Wild Card Race (Last Chance Qualifier) by 1.278 seconds over Max Anstie.
Ty Masterpool was a distant third, 9.8 seconds behind Bennick.
With attrition due to injury, a total of nine racers out of the 11-rider field advanced.
Cullin Park, Justin Rodbell, Henry Miller, Lux Turner, Hunter Yoder, and Cole Thompson rounded out the field.
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