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Tyler McQuarrie, the man with a hunger to prove his worth, faced off against Dean Kearney, who was hoping to have a better run than his boss, Sam Hubinette. “Absolutely, I'm going to do better than him today!” Said Kearney while listening to the judges call on Sam's run in the Top 16. “That's the plan, anyway!” Tyler, however, would ruin those plans with faster speed and larger angles, McQuarrie's lead run gave him a huge advantage to overcome. With the boss intently looking on, McQuarrie would dash the hopes of Kearney and move on to the Great 8!
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| Tyler McQuarrie moves on to the Great 8! Tyler had just been told that he would be released by Team Falken after the 2011 season and was determined to go all the way and go out with a bang, showing future employers what he was made of! |
The final battle of the Top 16 was Ken Gushi versus Daijiro Yoshihara. If Dai wanted to increase his chances of a championship, he would need to beat Gushi! Ken Gushi, on the other hand, needed this win to prove to the world that he was a driver worth sponsoring in 2012 as RS-R would not be returning next year. With both drivers having something huge on the line, they took off and Daijiro would lead first. With the speed of the SPD Metalworks built Discount Tire S13, Dai was able to keep a 3-5 car length lead against Ken Gushi with beautiful style and line. Advantage Dai.
With this killer lead run, Dai would just need to conservatively follow Ken and not do anything wrong! However, the competitive spirit in Dai would not let him do that. Blinded by thick Hankook smoke off of the bank in the transition, Dai went off course! In desperation, pushing Gushi hard through the rest of the course, Dai hit Ken, in the last turn of the course when Ken who appeared to slow down faster than Dai anticipated. The resulting hit and subsequent spin by Gushi cost Dai the win with two huge DQ worthy mistakes. Ken Gushi would move on to the Great 8! With this disaster, could Daijiro Yoshihara win the 2011 Championship?
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| Was the title hunt over for Dai? A blinded Dai Yoshihara finds himself 10 feet off line. |
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| Or was it JTP's Year? Keep reading! |
Dai's lead run against Ken Gushi was superb making it look like a sure pass to the great 8 when all hell broke loose in his follow run. |
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JTP's spectacular inner bank scraping antics were to cost him dearly. Here he just narrowly misses taking out the MotoIQ banner.
