JDR/J-Star/KTM’s Tye Simmonds missed transferring to the main event at the Seattle AMA Supercross round on Saturday, finishing just one position shy of qualifying.

Simmonds had a decent start to his day qualifying 20th fastest in overall practice times. He was placed in the first Supercross heat race where he suffered from a poor start and moved up to 11th by the end of the heat.

His heat result put him in the last chance qualifier for a final attempt at transferring to the main event, but it wasn’t to be as he finished third following a hard-fought affair.

“It is definitely hard to know how close I came to qualifying tonight,” he admitted. “I have been training very hard and was looking forward to these final three races.

“I am really disappointed in my ride tonight. However, I am still learning a lot about racing Supercross in my first year over here and as long as I can learn from each of my mistakes I am confident I will continue to improve.”

In the LCQ, Simmonds got off to a decent start and was sitting inside the top five. He moved to fourth quickly in the race and was granted another position when Greg Crater crashed near the final lap.

Once in third he began to pressure the second place ride of Fabien Izoird. On the final lap he closed the gap but was unable to make the pass and finished third overall to take home the gas card.