MotoAmerica at Road America gallery and recap
The MotoAmerica series returned to central Wisconsin again this past weekend to beautiful Road America course. The weather was a bit of an up and down situation with Friday and Sunday working out, but the skies opened up on Saturday and rained all afternoon. Racing continued but was subject to a higher than normal amount of red flags as the wet conditions caused more slide outs than normal. I haven’t seen attendance numbers yet but the crowd looked pretty full as expected for this round of racing. We had our own Nicholle Suhr up there shooting all the action and trying to stay warm and dry in the rainy conditions on Saturday.
Press release: MotoAmerica
Junior Cup – Chapin In The Wet
Junior Cup race one started off Saturday’s racing at Road America, and a steady rain fell throughout most of the afternoon. MotoAmerica’s entry-level riders handled the conditions pretty well, but surprisingly, defending class champion Avery Dreher crashed out of third place towards the end of the final lap, and he also knocked Isaac Woodworth out of second place in the process. Woodworth was able to rejoin the race and finish fifth, while Dreher was out of the race.
BARTCON Racing’s Matthew Chapin avoided the melee, and he took the checkered flag with his teammate Eli Block finishing second. Ironically, the rider who benefitted the most from Dreher’s incident was his sister Ella Dreher. The 14-year-old Bad Boys Racing rider notched the first podium result of her career.
“I’ve had a little bit of rain practice since Atlanta, so my confidence going into the race was definitely up,” Chapin said. “Also, my qualifying position being P3, I could see straight to turn one. I’ve never had that before. My best qualifying before this was seventh, I think. So, I think that was all a big part of it.”
Commenting on Avery Dreher’s crash, Chapin said, “I was on the inside of the corner, and then Avery was trying to out-brake me on the left side. He tucked the front really early, and then his body hit Isaac’s back tire and took him out. So, it was pretty close, but I didn’t really think I was going to get involved in it.”
Supersport – Jacobsen Over Scholtz
Rahal Ducati Moto’s PJ Jacobsen sat behind Strack Racing’s Mathew Scholtz for most of the six-lap Supersport race at Road America on Saturday. But he struck at the end and drafted past the South African at the finish line to win by .040 of a second.
The win was Jacobsen’s third of the young season and it gave him a 16-point lead over Scholtz in the championship.
Scholtz was an ever so close second with the lead duo well clear of Altus Motorsports’ Jake Lewis, who backed off late in the race after realizing the risk wasn’t going to get him the reward he wanted.
Vision Wheel M4 Suzuki’s Tyler Scott was fourth with Jacobsen’s Rahal Ducati Moto’s Kayla Yaakov rounded out the top five.
“You don’t really have an option at that point,” Jacobsen said. “I know we’re only on the third round, but if the guy that’s closing on you in the championship is right there in front of you and there’s a possibility to get him, then I’m going to get him. I’m not going to just give up and settle for a second. I was going for it, but it didn’t really feel like I was on the limit of crashing or anything like that. I felt pretty comfortable. I was slowly inching away at him there towards the end. He had a very strong pace in the beginning. I felt like I kind of missed that seven minutes as well because our (rain) light was out, so I missed the little seven minutes that we had in the beginning. actually, I asked Jake how the track was, and he told me in some spots. So, that was helpful. It was a really good race. Before the restart, it was pretty crazy too because there was a big group of like seven guys. But Mathew (Scholtz) was riding great.”