“I Really Don’t Feel Like I Won Tonight.”

Kitchen admitted he’d settled into second before the restart, saying, “Yeah, I was totally settled into second. He gapped me a lot in the first seven or eight minutes. After that I felt fairly good, but I’ve been in his shoes, he was just clicking them off. I think all three of us were just expecting to finish where we were. That was a wild turn of events.”  Kitchen acknowledged the situation saying, “I’m hungry for more because I really don’t feel like I won tonight.”

“I knew that me, Max, and RJ [Hampshire] were probably going to be bumping bars. I tried to pick out a spot and I knew that three in the back was really hard and you had to go really wide, so I ended up getting close enough to try and make a pass there and made it stick and tried to get away,” explained Kitchen. “It was chaos. It was also tough because we just raced for fourteen minutes, and then your heartrate comes down, and you’re kind of a little winded. Overall, I’ll take it. It’s not really how I would like to win, but last weekend I was kind of on the other side of it too, wasn’t a great one either,” he said, laughing. A week ago Kitchen was making up ground after a bad start and early crash, then saw a lap where he made four passes erased when a red flag and restart reverted back to the previous lap scored.

When asked about rebounding from last week and what he expects going forward, Kitchen emphasized, “Nothing really changed. I changed my bike before Tampa, which probably wasn’t the right decision, so I went back to my base this week. Tampa, I struggled. I struggled in the whoops, I struggled in the sand, and yeah, I think I was just more comfortable (this week). I’ve been racing long enough to know now, every night it can totally change. I knew I could bounce back from that. I didn’t really do a whole lot different. I just did my normal week and changed my bike a little bit and came into this week fresh and ready to battle.” 

The results in Detroit were much more indicative of what was expected in Tampa. Kitchen, Anstie, Hampshire, and defending 250 east champion, Tom Vialle, were amongst the title favorites coming in and finished top four Saturday night. “I expected this to be the battle (he, Anstie and Hampshire),” Kitchen said. “I knew there was going to be some other guys that are going to be good and there are going to be guys that are good at certain places depending on how the tracks break down. But I feel like the three of us all have the aspects pretty good. I fully expect this to be a pretty good battle to the end. And it’s fun too. I think we all race each other really mature. There were probably opportunities in the heat race, he probably could have T-boned me and Max probably in the main, at the end there. It’s fun racing with these guys.”

This was Levi’s fifth career 250SX win. Now the 250SX east guys get a week off and will return for the 54^th running of the Daytona Supercross inside of Daytona International Speedway. Once there, Kitchen will look to continue to chip away at Anstie’s nine-point lead and stop the momentum of the friendly Brit.