MotoAmerica Barber: Kayla's Campaign Continues

Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 840 for the 23rd of May, 2026. Kayla's campaign continues. Thanks to all the show's supporters. If you've been listening, please consider supporting the show.

Visit the website at motopodcast.com for details. Any amount is greatly appreciated. On this show, we will be covering the Moto America races at Barber from last weekend. I'm Jake Grower in Seattle, new to the show this year. And with me today for the second time is our longtime correspondent, Scott.

Scott Bolton on the East Coast. Scott, good afternoon. How are you doing? Hey, Jake. Good to be back with you.

We had a pretty awesome time at Barber last weekend. I made the trip down and you made the trip over and got to actually meet and spend a few days at the track. So I really enjoyed it. I can't really say enough good things about Barber itself. What an amazing place.

Yeah, I was interested to see what your thoughts were going to be on it. And yeah, it seemed like it didn't disappoint in your expectations. Oh, man, it exceeded all my all my preconceived expectations. I've been reading about it for years and seeing photos of the museum and everything. And anybody that has a chance to go there or doesn't even have a chance, give yourself a chance and go there because it's it's just incredible.

It's like a it's like a golf course. The whole all the grounds are just perfectly manicured and everything's really well organized. And wow, just what a place to go. It feels like you're going to a fancy country club. But then you're watching motorcycle racing.

So what could be better than that? Yeah, absolutely. And just kudos to George Barber. Rest in peace for putting that beautiful facility in place for, you know, not only us motorcycle fan racing fans, but car racing fans and whatever. So, yeah, special place for sure.

Oh, man. What a yeah, just what a jewel in the crown of of what, you know, the racetracks we have in this country. Yeah, I understand. George passed away. This year, earlier this year.

Is that is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. It's a few months ago. Yeah.

And I didn't realize how many I thought the museum was exclusively motorcycles. But of course, that's incorrect. There are quite a few cars there and quite a few F1 cars, like most notably a bunch of Lotuses from all the different eras mounted on these cantilevered brackets attached to the concrete structure of the museum. It's quite dramatic to go in there. You can actually, look at the cars from above and then stand under the cars and look up at the undercarriages, which I found pretty fascinating.

I didn't expect to see that sort of automobile display. So I, I booked an extra day on Monday, as you know, and spent a few hours in there. I went in, had to take a break, go out, get some lunch, went back in again for a second tour. And I'll definitely be touring it again. I apparently they have a few hundred more motorcycles than they have space for.

So they rotate at least a large portion of the bikes through the display. I don't know on what frequency, but it'll be cool to go back and see some different motorcycles in there next time. I think. Yeah. Speaking of the Lotus race cars, I'm pretty sure I've seen where that collection that he has is the largest private collection in the world of Lotus race cars.

So that's pretty impressive, but yeah, you definitely need a, you could, you could spend a whole day in there without a problem, probably multiple days. You had the time and, you know, when I, when I first walked in, I literally, I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I felt overwhelmed just looking around at all these different machines, brightly lit in every direction, not only sort of like looking left and right, but also looking up and down because it's five levels. I was like, I had to like, take a second and like gather myself. I was, I could not believe what I was seeing once I walked through the doors. So, and then you can walk through the museum, over the bridge that goes over the exit of the museum corner.

And then you can, there's like a whole area on the inside of the track with a path you can walk on. It's just incredible. Like I can't, can't say enough about it. Yeah. What a, what a place.

So if you've been thinking about going to Barber, stop thinking about it and go, because you will not regret it for any event. I think, I don't think it matters what event you go to. It's just, yeah, they run the IndyCar race there. Uh, usually. It was about a month.

Yeah. It was about a month ago. That is a tight, that's a tight track for IndyCars. That would be awesome to watch. Yeah.

And then they, of course the big, I think their biggest event is the Barber Vintage Fest in October every year. I think this is the 21st anniversary coming up this year. I've been to that at a few times and that's a great, uh, that's a great event. Arma is their racing vintage and you've got what had to be one of the, I mean, they had a swap made as you know, cause you spent some time there. I got, I got trapped in the swap meet for a couple hours.

Yes. But the one in at the Vintage Fest is even, it's probably double the size of the one that was there for the Moto America. So is that, is that motorcycles and cars or just motorcycles? No, the Barber Vintage Fest is motorcycle specific. Oh man.

I'm going to have to look that up. Cause I was trying to, I tried to get one of my motorcycle friends to come to this, to the Barber race, as I was telling you, and he couldn't make it. So. Maybe I will re-propose going to the Vintage Fest. Cause he's, he would love the vintage stuff that that'd be, that'd be right up his alley.

Yeah. They, they really pack up in there for the Vintage Fest. I mean, we had a good crowd for Moto America, which I was glad to see as they're, you know. Yeah. It felt, honestly, it felt, it felt about as well attended as, as a MotoGP at Koda, honestly.

I mean, Koda is much bigger, obviously, but yeah, there was people, it was good. Yeah. Let's talk attendance, uh, attendance numbers. They're going in a positive direction for Moto America. I saw that at Road Atlanta and at Barber and yeah, that's probably one of the bigger crowds I've seen at Barber in quite a few years.

So, uh, yeah. It's still cool and not mainstream and therefore it's not a nightmare to get in and park and the tickets are reasonable and it's very accessible still at this point. It's not, it's not like going to an F1 race. Yeah. Well, I wanted to also just kind of give a shout out to Moto America for, I don't know, just being very quick to give people media credentials such as myself.

I sort of couldn't quite believe it when I was presented with a seasoned media pass and parking pass to go to any and all events that I want to go to, which gives me access to the media center with all the real journalists and photographers like Brian J. Nelson, who's become kind of infamous on, on soup anyway. And, uh, also access to, at least at this point, access to the inner fence lines of the track where the photographers go. Apparently they, they didn't seem to be discriminating between media people and photography people. They just sort of give, give the same access to everybody.

And man, I got some amazing, I did a full, full walk around track on the inner fence line and got some incredible vantage points. It really allowed me to understand the track better just by walking around it. You know, it's not as good as riding around it, but it gave me a sense, at least by walking. So shout out. I think they're, you know, and I met a bunch of the, bunch of the media people that work for Moto America and everybody's super nice and helpful and very welcoming, you know, not, not standoffish and, you know, they, they didn't know who I was, but they were quick to introduce themselves.

And I met Sean vice, who's also really nice and outgoing. Um, so that was really cool. It was really cool to hang out in the media center with all these people. And I didn't like make a nuisance of myself. I just kind of hung back and just observed, it was cool.

It felt like a real thing. Yeah, no, that's a good point. And, uh, you know, it's not like they're just giving out media passes like candy or anything, but you know, we're, we're, we have a, uh, a presence in the community because we have been covering it for quite a few years. Yeah. We're not the biggest fish in the pond, uh, but we're, we're the long, we're the oldest fish in the pond.

Yeah. In terms of podcasts, I suppose you're right. I, I may, maybe I'm selling us a little short here, and I apologize. I, oh no, no, I just, it's, it's more, I guess for me personally, I, I feel I'm pinching myself a little bit because I can't quite believe, you know, how simple that was, but I suppose signing up with Moto pod with, with certain names on the application is certainly helpful. Um, maybe if I had just signed up on my own or probably most likely if I had just signed up on my own without an association, maybe they would have, would have not been so quick to approve that application.

Um, but I'd like to think they might've at least just asked me some questions, you know, and not just denied it either. They seemed very, seemed very welcoming to any and all media because, you know, I think they recognize like, if you don't do that, you're just cutting your own feet off in terms of promoting the series. Yeah, absolutely. This was another red flag weekend, kind of like road Atlanta. Sure.

Um, yeah, there was, there was a couple of pretty bad injuries and a lot of red flags, a lot of restarts, which is, if this is normal or abnormal, I don't have a sense of that. It's just early season, but hopefully it calms down as, as the season progresses, because as it is now, just it's too many red flags, too many restarts. I've got some thoughts on that and seeing some other thoughts on it throughout the week. So we, uh, we'll discuss that at the back end of the show and, uh, you know, kind of, uh, hash that out a little bit and what may be some of the contributing factors there on and off the track. Yeah.

Yeah. One little note. I really noticed when we were watching the races, uh, on the back straight there and in the woods, man, a lot of people cheering for Kayla, including me, maybe mostly me, but I don't know if you noticed that Scott, but she was garnering, it seemed like more cheers than anybody else, at least in, in, in her, in super sport. Did you, did you notice that? Yeah.

She's quickly turned into a fan favorite. Uh, yeah, she was before this year, but now that she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's up into one of the, uh, premier classes, uh, being super sport, uh, basically just this one ring below the super bike class. Yeah. Gain a large fan following. And, and another good thing is a lot of media, even outside of the motorcycle world is seeing it too.

Yeah. I think that's great. I mean, yeah, I hadn't really thought about the potential of her bringing a lot of attention from outside the motorcycle world. So that, that makes sense actually, that she would, she would be creating some, some stories. That were big enough to kind of pull in more mainstream media.

Yeah. Let's hope that's the case. I mean, it's only going to help the series, right. It's only going to bring more people from outside into it. So yeah, here's, here's to Kayla.

I'm, I'm part of that fan group wholeheartedly. Absolutely. So this is kind of funny. I, I only now after two events finally understand that Ray Hall Ducati has kind of followed it a new way of showing their title sponsors where they have all these bikes under the same team with different graphics and different title sponsors, because rather than trying to plaster the three sponsors over all the bikes, they're basically choosing which bike shows, which sponsor that took me a while to figure out I'm slow and old and didn't understand, but I finally got it. So I think you understood this earlier in the season, but it finally, finally kind of clicked for me.

They're all on the same team, but with different, different. Title sponsors shown on different bikes. Yeah. With the, uh, last couple of years, they were, you know, primarily super sport only. And, uh, you know, they had the, uh, I'm not sure about the first year, definitely last year, they had the, uh, two Excel, the yellow bikes, and then they had the one orange roller die back last year, Corey Alexander road, of course, PJ and Kayla were super, you know, on the expel box last year in super sport.

And this year with PJ moving up and then bringing Josh Heron in to ride the, uh, the third super sport bike. So yeah. And the super sport actually, yeah, all four bikes, the one super bike with three super sport bikes, different sponsors colors. And yes, very interesting. It is.

It's, it's cool. It's a pretty, it's cool in a way, but it really did confuse me for a couple of events. It's kind of a, kind of a side note. Um, all right, Scott, we both got some interviews this weekend. Give me a brief description of the four that you got.

Yeah. So on Friday evening, um, I got the opportunity to sit down for a few minutes with, uh, Alessandro DeMario, uh, for the Ray Hall Ducati roller die effort. After that was able to, uh, spend a few minutes with Jason Uribe, the orange cat, BMW super bikes, SDKs teammate. And, uh, then was able to grab a few minutes with, uh, the darling of the series right now, Kayla Yakov at the, uh, drop lot, uh, Ray Hall Ducati. Tent.

So that was, uh, that was a good snag. Finally get to catch up with Kayla after several years of trying. And then, uh, Saturday evening, uh, was fortunate to, uh, speak to Maddie Schultz, Matthew Schultz, the, uh, track racing tent pit area. So that was good, uh, for, for riders to, uh, get some thoughts on. Yeah.

That was a great, great lineup. I was fortunate enough to be standing next to you when you were talking to Kayla. That was great. Um, I managed to get a couple of as well on Saturday. I talked to Ken say months of Daira on the team, KR Kramer and talent cup after race one, which we'll talk about later.

Also on Saturday after race one super bike, I managed to speak to JD beach, pretty excited about those two. And we'll put those in at the end of the show and hopefully you enjoy them. All right. We'll start with super sport. So Friday qualifying first session, most of the way through the session with about four minutes remaining, Kayla put in the best time of a one 25.7, which was three tenths slower than the track record of a 25.4.

Uh, this, this would hold holder in the top position for the remainder of the session. A little bit after that, Darren Bender had a crash in turn two, pretty fast crash. I think they were saying that he had been finding the limit in that corner. Finding the breaking limit. And I think he think he went over the line there.

Uh, but he was okay. I'm not, I wasn't, it wasn't a lot of coverage of it, but he didn't get hurt. I think the bike might've got damaged, but he was fine. So that session ended with Kayla leading Josh Heron right behind her just about a 10th behind and Darren Bender about a half a second behind and Alessandro DiMario and P4, almost a whole second behind and Ty Scott and P5 with Josh Hayes in P6. That's about over.

Second behind. And then Blake Davis in P7 on the Strack R9. We'll move on to qualifying two on Saturday. Kayla found more speed right at the end with less than a minute to go. She put in a 125.2, which was faster than Schultz's record set last year.

And I said it wrong. Schultz, Schultz's record set last year in super sport. Yep. That's the man himself. So we know we've got the right pronunciation.

Scott, you can. Confirmed it finally. It will be Schultz heretofore referred to only as Matthew Schultz. I apologize for my prior indiscretions, but we will get it correct this time. Josh Heron right behind Kayla.

Well, not right behind, a couple of tenths behind and Ty Scott about six tenths behind in P3 with Darren Bender in P4, about seven tenths behind with Alessandro DiMario in P5, about a second behind. And then Josh Hayes and Blake Davis in six and seven. So that was pretty impressive. Um, I, on Friday, I sort of forgot that it was only the first qualifying session. And I was telling people that Kayla had got pole position again for the second event in a row after road Atlanta.

And then later I was like, wait a minute, that's not actually true yet, but she, she backed it up on Saturday. And I mean, she took a half second off her best time from Friday, which is like a huge amount of time and broke the track record for qualifying. So she's just continuing her methodical march towards winning. It's, it's pretty amazing to observe. It's, I just love how deliberate she is.

And she's, she's so careful and she doesn't like, or no, she doesn't, she's not wild and crazy. She just keeps pushing forward and making improvements, you know, which I really respect and find, find impressive to watch, especially for somebody so young. Um, what do you think about her, Scott? Yeah. Yeah.

There's no, there's no doubt the strife she's making and all aspects of her racing, uh, as far as on track, off track, mentally, physically, just impressive to see as the young lady, uh, continues to meet and exceed, I think a lot of expectations that many people have had for over the last few years, knowing she's very talented and, and fast and good, but, uh, now she's battling with some tough hombres and, uh, coming good on it. She is. She's backing it up. What I find most interesting is she's not, I don't know if she's, she's so careful. She doesn't have crazy moments.

She's not making big mistakes. She's just, she's on her line all the time. And then in the racing, she's been able to defend her position. And, you know, she finds she will not, not finally, but she really did find a little more aggression weekend. Um, but she's just working up to it.

She doesn't, she doesn't find the line by going over it. So many of us do. She seems to, she seems to creep up on it. You know, like a very, a very good machinist just creeps up on that final dimension without taking too much off and without going over and making a part too small. I don't know why that popped into my head as an analogy, but she's, but deliberately work towards a goal without making mistakes.

It's, it's pretty amazing. She's very, very, uh, precise, very smooth. Yeah. Like I say, she's learning to get there. Get those elbows out during the race against, uh, these, uh, seasoned veterans.

She's up against. She sure is. And she's, and she's starting to believe that she deserves it too. You could see that in some of the interviews. She really, she's, she was actually, well, we'll get to that later anyway.

Yeah. Okay. So on Saturday in race one, Josh leads the field and then Kayla passes him at the end of lap one for a while until Heron regained the lead. And this tight pack of four with Kayla, Josh, Ty Scott, and Brad vendor, they're really, they're in their own group. You know, there's, it's a very clear leading group of four.

And that's been this way for a couple of events now where they're, they're clearly faster than everybody else. And DeMario is back there. He's, he's coming. He'll come good, but he hasn't, he hasn't quite found his pace yet on that Ducati, but he will, but he's, he's not there yet. It really is a battle between the top four.

So by lap five, Darren, last Kayla for P2 with Heron continuing to lead, but they remain all three really, really close together with Ty Scott, about a second behind. And by lap eight, there's a red flag caused by Kevin Horny crashing into the air fence. I believe he was going up the hill into turn 14. It's a little confusing when I, when I observe, when I watch the races, cause they don't always say where the crash is. And there are certain parts of the track that look really similar to me.

And I, I sometimes have trouble just, distinguishing at Barber between certain areas of like the museum corner and certain areas of the sort of turn 12, 13, 14, 15 area on the opposite end of the track. Jake, I think it actually might've been going into turn one off the front straight away that he ran. Yeah. Okay. See, I, I put a question mark cause I really couldn't, I really couldn't tell where it was.

So. Yeah. He went in there hard to unfortunately broken leg, busted ribs, but he'll, he'll, you know, he'll heal up. It was the first, uh, in the super sport class in a way, the first kind of heart incident we saw. Yeah.

I noted that Kevin suffered a broken femur and a few broken ribs, but he is, he is recovering and he's okay. So yeah, pretty bad crash for him, but he'll, he'll heal up and come back probably without a doubt. Sure. So we had to have a restart after the red flag and they restarted the race with, with an eight lap distance instead of the original 18 laps. I don't know.

So on lap one, Binder passes Heron for the lead in the turn four or five area, but only briefly. And then soon after that, there is another red flag on the first lap of the restart caused by Shane Maggs running over a crashing Hayden Dietrich, who was entering turn four. That was pretty ugly. It looked like Hayden came in, lost the front breaking into turn four and Shane Maggs was, I think he was in the front. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think he was maybe coming in on the outside of Hayden. And when Hayden tucked the front and was sliding, Shane Maggs had nowhere to go. And he, he ended up running over Hayden Dietrich, which was awful to watch. What was better to watch was Shane immediately after he recovered himself and stood back up, he went to check on Hayden, you know, like, like every good rider does. A little side note there.

I actually met Hayden's dad, Scott, at the airport when we were waiting to get our rental cars and, you know, we were, we were, we were, we were, we were, we were, we were, we were, we were right there. I met him a few times two weeks ago. So I was there in the forward lane, trying to take a control over the ain with him. And I was in the start of the, of the first nearing to the other side of the track. I met Scott��.

He met Hayden many times at the after the truck, grabbing the term and I saw, I saw Pto of the little diamond robot. I, and I was in front of him by myself. He told me that I wasvoltRad for a while. And I saw, I saw him and his partner at the track a few times on Friday and Saturday, and man, I actually, after that crash, I tried to go find them, but I think they had already taken Hayden to the hospital or gone with him to the hospital. So Scott, if you're listening, I hope your boy is okay.

I didn't really get any information on what injuries he suffered, but hopefully, thing i didn't jake but hopefully the no news good news uh situation applies here because uh i think if there would have been any really serious injuries we probably would have heard about it they're not going super fast there when they're coming into turn four so yeah well just one of the you don't want to crash anywhere but that may be one of the a little more crash friendly places as far as not being a high speed and uh you know anything to really impact there other than another bike or rider yeah exactly so then there was a second restart again with eight laps and uh one thing i wanted to note was they they restart in the positions as of the red flag they don't restart in their qualifying positions i don't know if that's that's standard procedure i just somehow hadn't noticed that until now so i thought i'd make a note i think if the race is a red flag within the first three laps i think they go back to the original grid positions but if it's i think it's three laps that if they've completed three laps that they will grid as they were running at the time of the race that's that's an interesting detail makes sense so on this the second and thankfully final restart uh bender gets out front at the start with heron and kayla close behind lake davis gets a better start this time and finds himself in p4 with ty scott close behind in p5 on lap two heron has a as a moment i didn't really know what exactly was going on but i think it's three laps that if they've completed three laps that they will grid would happen but he he ran wide or slowed down for some reason and blake capitalized on that and got himself into p3 one thing that's a little frustrating is you know i have to re-watch these races to actually make proper notes i don't really have the ability to do it when we're actually at the track at least i didn't do it this time but when they're on the videos they don't they don't necessarily tell you what lap they're on they'll tell you how many laps there are to go which i'd rather they just said what lap it was the math to figure out what lap they're on is slightly strange anyway it's a side note but somewhere around lap three kayla takes the lead on the front straight exiting the final corner which was impressive by lap five she's still leading and battling with josh back and forth very hard showing her credentials at this point for actually being in this series she she was not yielding at all and they were going back and forth multiple times for a lap this was probably the best racing of the weekend i have ever seen and i think it's probably the best racing of the weekend i have ever seen and i think it's probably the best racing would say darren was also very close and eventually entered the battle and somehow found himself in the lead maybe he was able to get past them because they were battling so much i don't really didn't know when he actually took the lead but by lap six or seven harren and bender are now battling hard with kayla observing from a very close distance right behind them and ty scott is also there right behind kayla who eventually passes kayla for p3 and on the last lap kayla is now in fourth but she waits until the very end of the lap and then puts this awesome move on ty scott entering the front basically in that flick between 16 and 17 right before the front straight she gets on the inside of him as they flick it from right to left for the final corner and just gets that final podium position and holds it so the final finishing order was josh harren winning darren bender fine him six hundredths of a second behind him kayla yakoff only two tenths behind and then ty scott right behind kayla with josh hayes getting a pretty good result in p5 about six tenths of a second behind blake davis about a second behind josh getting p6 dominic doyle and p7 four seconds back and then alessandro demario didn't have an awesome race he was right behind dominic doyle in eighth and then aiden sneed and and then tori colton's rounding out top 10 yeah just some great racing and that race won a super sport race like i say a lot of a lot of back and forth uh mainly for the top four between the three ducatis and then ty scott on the suzuki and uh yeah they uh they put on a show good show for sure it's why we're there that's the kind of racing everybody wants to see good clean hard tight battling for a lot you know many laps on end it's sort of as good as it gets Kayla's right in there with them. So moving on to Sunday, the second race scheduled for 18 laps, which I'll spoil it here and say this one was also red flagged. This was bad. We'll talk about this in a minute. So they got about halfway through the race.

I'm not going to go through all the details because it was red flagged. But on lap eight, Ryder Davis on the 555 Ducati has a big crash on the downhill between 13 and 14. And his bike stayed in the middle of the track. And what's important to note here is that Barber has a lot of blind spots. There's a lot of crests.

And this is one of them. So his bike is laying in the middle of the track, just beyond a blind. Go ahead, Scott. Yeah, right in the racing line. Yeah, right on the line and just beyond the blind crest of 13.

So this was probably the worst moment of the whole weekend for me was Ella Dreyer came over that crest before the red flags were out, basically seconds after the crash happened. I don't know how many seconds, but very soon after. And she comes over the crest and just immediately presented with this impossible situation of a yellow Ducati lying in the middle of the track right on her line. And she had a few milliseconds to react, which is not enough time to avoid it. Yeah.

The main problem was she was right behind another bike, another rider. And when they crested that hill, she was tucked in right behind this other rider. And he makes a pretty last minute move to go to the outside of the down machine. Well, he probably, I assume maybe he cracked the throttle just a little bit. So she went up the inside of him, you know, naturally.

And when she did, she was right there on the bike. I don't think she ever saw it until she pulled out. That's a very important detail. I missed that. Yeah.

So. So it was just unfortunately, totally unavoidable for her in that situation. I thought that's what it certainly was unavoidable, but I, I missed the fact that she was basically tucked in right behind whoever she was behind, who was able to avoid it, but she didn't understand why he was changing his line. And it was a spectacular explosion of the yellow bike that she hit and her just flying through the air. Uh, really dramatic, really.

Scary, uh, poor Ella Dreher really hurt herself. There have been some updates. She went to the hospital immediately. She has already had surgery and has already out of the hospital as of yesterday. And there's actually, currently she had multiple pelvic fractures and a fractured C3 vertebrae, which I believe is in her neck.

There is a GoFundMe, which looks like it was organized by Sean Dillon and Kelly and is already raised a significant amount. If anybody's interested, go find that. Yeah, we can maybe, we can maybe post a link to that in the show. Yeah. I was going to say, we'll put a link to it in the show notes, but there was a, there was a photo of her sitting, you know, sitting with a neck brace on in the hospital bed, you know, conscious and smiling.

So I think she's going to be okay, but it's going to be a rough summer for her. It's not going to be. And interestingly enough, of course, uh, her brother, Avery Dreher is her teammate. Right. Um, that, that MP 13 racing, uh, MV Augustus, which is, uh, Melissa Paris's team, Josh Hayes, his wife.

So, uh, and Avery had ran off into the gravel earlier before that crash. So he unfortunately had the, just, it would have been pretty awful for him to come through there afterwards, which he did. I'm sure he could recognize it was his sister down. Yeah. Yeah.

By the leathers or whatever. So that, that had to be a, just a bad moment for him. Well, what's even more impressive to me, I don't know, good or bad. I'm not sure, but he was able to do the restart and he finished pretty well in that race, which I found kind of amazing. Yeah.

That's, uh, that's probably what, what Ella would have wanted, you know? Heck yeah. Yeah. So yeah, absolutely. Kind of crazy.

That's what, that's what racers can do. Yeah. And that, that, those, you know, those two, uh, those brought the brother and sister. They've been through a rough couple of years. They Avery and I guess Ella probably before, but after she went pro, they were racing for her.

It was her dad. And, uh, and, uh, they call him. I can't think of his name right off, but they refer to him as their uncle, but it's basically his dad's racing partner and, uh, under the bad boys racing team moniker. And, uh, Ella was in a talent cup last year. Avery was running twins cup.

And, uh, so they both Melissa Paris signed them both on this year for that super sport ride. And yeah, I think Avery was 11th on Saturday. So yeah. So he he'll carry on the torch. Yeah.

Ella. I'm sure she would have had a, a, a problem with him, uh, not finishing the race on her account. So probably. Yeah. That's, that's what I, when I thought about it for more than half a second, I thought, no, Ella would tell her brother to go race.

She would not want anything else. As a race. But, you know, we we've talked, she's another, and hopefully she should recover and probably come back and, uh, get back at it. Uh, but she's another young female racer that was really, has really been showing some promise. So, you know, you've got her, you got Sonia Lloyd and twins cup and of course Kayla and super sports.

So yeah, no, there's a, there's a few, the numbers are going, going in the right direction. Yeah. But get, get well quick, Ella. Absolutely. Pulling.

Yeah. Yeah. We're pulling for you, Ella, for sure. Um, that was a, that was. That was a big one.

Thankfully it's a rare thing. It doesn't happen very often. You know, people, people go off the track all the time, but to hit a bike in the middle of the track, thankfully is a very rare occurrence. Yep. It's motorcycle racing that unfortunately, uh, things like that can happen, but unfortunately that particular scenario is we don't see very often.

So on the restart, Kayla leads again and Ty Scott is falling close behind. Binder soon catches them and makes an attempt on Kayla. And eventually he takes the lead, but on lap two, however, by lap four, Kayla retakes the lead in turn one and Binder then takes it back the next lap in turn four. So Binder and Kayla now are taking turns battling for the lead, which was amazing to see. One thing I wanted to note was they were showing on the video, they were showing the top speeds of like the top five riders, which was really cool to see on the, in the first race, they were all identical, 142 miles an hour.

However, in the second race, all four, except one were 142 with Kayla showing 146, which I thought was interesting, interesting to kind of analyze how she was able to do that. By lap six, Binder continues to lead, but Kayla's right on his back wheel with Heron in the mix and Ty Scott shadowing in P4. Eventually Heron is able to take P2 and pushing Kayla back to P3. But soon after that, Kayla is able to take P2 and push Kayla back to P3. Kayla passes Josh back in turn one, again, another pass she makes in turn one and regains her P2 and continues to hold that position with Josh fighting, but not hard enough to beat her.

By the final lap, Ty Scott passes Heron right at the line in a photo finish for P3 with Kayla right on Binder's wheel. I believe the announcers called it for Heron for P3, but after the analysis, it was the term and that Ty Scott actually got the final podium position only one, about a hundredth ahead of Heron. So it was very, very, very close. And just note, one thing to note is, is Kayla looked like she was setting Binder up for that last turn inside move, but she had some wheel spin and coming off of the next to last corner and it kind of ruined her drive to set that move up. Yeah, I was watching on Friday when I was walking around the track.

I, I stood there on the outside of sort of turn 15, 16, they kind of blend together, but is a, there's a very distinctive spot where they, they finished the right turn and then they get a nice little squirt of acceleration as they stand the bike up and flick it to the left for the final corner. And there's a couple of different lines through there and it would have been great to watch when she made that pass, uh, in the first race to, to get her, her third place would have been cool. To see her make that move, but then kind of imagine it just from the time that I took standing there. Um, but it does make sense. Like you said, that if you did, if your rear tire was wearing out and weren't able to actually get that squirt that you wouldn't be able to make the move.

So it sounds like that's what happened to Kayla P three on Saturday, P two on Sunday, you know, she's, she's right there. It was interesting after the race, she was clearly disappointed that she wasn't able to win. She really, she was expecting it or really. Believe that it was possible and I, and I agree it was possible, but didn't quite happen for her, but it will. I'm sure of that.

I think so. Okay. So Scott, give us a recap of the current season points in super sport. Okay. Let's see.

Let's see. Let's look at that race to finish right quick. Uh, you had Darren Bender, of course, taking the rent, the wind, Kat, Kayla, Yakov, second Tyler, Scott, third, Josh Heron, fourth, good run for Maxi Gerardo on the Altus Motorsports. I'm on a fifth, uh, Blake Davis, six, eight and Snedes, seventh torn Collins, eighth Josh Hayes, ninth and Alessandro Demario 10th and yeah, let's see just a couple of, and I'm going to pull the points up here, but just while I'm doing that, a couple of interesting comments I heard from a few of the riders after the race, uh, one was, uh, them, uh, talking to Blake Davis or after the race week, I should say, and you know, the R nine was pretty, pretty much a front runner last year. With of course, scolds and Blake Davis on occasion, and, uh, they were talking to Blake and he said, basically he wrote Atlanta and Barbara that they just, he cannot get comfortable on the back.

So they're a little bit down on top speed and said, it's just not rolling through the corners well for him. And they're continuing to work on it. You know, we mentioned last week about Josh Hayes saying we're on his R nine, that the change to the stock swing arm had helped him. Yeah. It's the opposite for Blake Davis.

So, uh, Blake is talent wise, definitely capable of being up there battling with that top four. That was kind of, uh, running away with it for the most part of the weekend and super sport. But I thought that was interesting to hear and hopefully they can get that sorted out along and also Josh Hayes mentioned, and it was kind of the same at road Atlanta that he needs to, uh, figure out a way to run as good on Sunday as he has been on Saturday because of both. He, I think even though he crashed out Saturday at red Atlanta, he was very competitive until that point. And then Sunday, not so much.

And kind of the same thing. He dropped down the order a little bit at Barbara on Sunday. Well, he's probably just getting tired. Oh, I'm not going there just in case, just in case the ageless wonder is listening. No, I mean, you can't, you can't deny reality, you know, it's just, maybe he's just getting a little tired.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't think any less of him for it. Yeah. He's a beast. I don't know. He's a beast.

I don't think stamina is his problem. Uh, No, not so much physical, but it could be a mental, you know, I mean, it's just Josh Hayes. I don't get a little tired. I don't know. I mean, he's I don't think so.

He's yeah. He's amazing. I mean, mentally and physically I'd, I'd put him, uh, ahead of a lot of guys out there, 15, 20 years, uh, you know, younger than him, honestly, he's just that still that good. I believe in, you know, No. I don't know.

I don't I'm mostly joking. Of course. I don't think it's just me, but yeah. But, but you, yeah. I mean, it'd be something to consider, I guess.

I know for me, it'd certainly be an issue, but, uh, I think he's just kind of, I mean, it's the third day on the track, right? You're you're running all day, Friday, Saturday, and then by Sunday, it's hot. Well, I'll tell you what, uh, Jake, you ask him about that at the rear. I will. I think I say, Josh, it seems like you're a little tired by the time Sunday comes around.

Can you comment on that? Yeah. Anyway, the other interesting comment I heard was from Josh Herron and, uh, he was asked about, you know, racing with Kayla and, and he said, oh, he said, you know, she's great to race with. She said, she, I know, you know, she's predictable. I'm not uncomfortable racing around her and she's racing me hard and making some, you know, some, some strong moves on me.

He said, bender on the other hand, I'm still a little bit weary of just because I hadn't raced against him. He said that much said he's riding great. He said, but he, you know, until I race with him some more that, you know, that's more of a concern for him at this point of the season, but he said, Kayla, you know, no problems. Well, that makes perfect sense. I mean, I, I won't, I won't equate myself with these guys at all, but in my time racing, you get to know the other people and you learn to trust them and you learn to feel very comfortable riding, you know, within millimeters of each other.

And it takes a little while to get there and it makes perfect sense that Josh wouldn't be comfortable with Darren yet. And Darren is, you know, he's not as careful and composed as Kayla by any stretch. He's a little wilder and he slides the bike around more and it makes perfect sense that Josh would express that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Good deal. Well, let's look at the standings right quick after the barber round, which is three rounds under the belt, a super sport campaign for 2026. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think things are going to continue to change and move around as the season progresses. At least that's what I hope for. Predictable championships are a lot less entertaining. Okay.

Moving on to Superbike. We had qualifying on Friday. which in some places was called q1 and other places was called timed practice apparently it has no bearing on the final qualifying positions it is really just a timed practice maybe i've gotten that wrong maybe it has some bearing but i think it's i think it's just the first practice session and really first qualifying session but there's no it doesn't affect the second qualifying session like in mutter gp well on the schedules they call it time practice but in the videos they call it q1 so in any case uh the main thing that happened really was ben smith had a huge crash on the back straight that we were both sitting there watching it um he had this he's on the you know he's on the um warhorse ducati superbike alongside cameron and he came off that left hand or that right hand turn that leads you onto the back straight he just the bike started head shaking and it you head shake but he stayed on the gas and he head shaked all the way about halfway down the back straight until the head shake just amplified and spat him off at a pretty high rate of speed by that point and they went tumbling well basically parallel with the track for a ways all the way basically to the end of the street luckily ben just sort of slid and tumbled on the grass and didn't hit anything but the bike was really dramatically flipping and cartwheeling and it went over the inner fence behind ending in the grass very dramatic there's a pretty amazing video of it on youtube that you can go find really scary yeah i was just gonna say it um you know i've seen crashes there coming off the kink onto the back straight before but generally you know the rider will come off will part the bike pretty quickly after you know it's a high side off of right that little right hander coming off the kink or whatever and uh yeah ben tried to, ride the thing out like you say and he was a good you know maybe close to if not halfway down the straightaway for it finally flicked him off and yeah that bike uh just yard sailed itself uh and fortunately it's not a really a normal impact zone you know where you go off the track to the to the inside infield part you know to the right there going down that back straight so there's really no air fence there so fortunately he did not contact the arm coat uh but and we'll talk about this a little bit more after we talk about the the races for super bike but but i wonder if that you know i can't help but wonder about the the uh instability issues that bobby is experiencing and and as i found out later after seeing a interview with cam p cam peterson on the wrench ducati no the v4r seems to be somewhat inherently unstable that that's the that i've been coming to that conclusion this year yes so we'll uh we'll discuss we'll we'll touch on that a little bit after we talk about the races shaundale and kelly also had a pretty big crash in turn 13 you know in the time practice on friday actually sdk was the quickest uh at a 122 908 with bobby a and scultz rounding out the top three uh hayden gillum on the honda cam peterson on the ducati and richie on the suzuki rounding out the top sixth so uh yeah but then in the saturday qualifying session is when sdk had a had that pretty big off so the other the other thing just i noticed while watching the qualifying was that all the r1s the tc traction control seems to be really invasive when they're come especially the the spot i was noticing was when they're exiting turn five you know at what they call charlotte's web they're exiting they're on the throttle and i think it's a little bit off camber and there might be a little bit of a dip but effectively they're struggling for all the bikes they're on the throttle and they're on the throttle and they're all the big bikes especially struggling for grip but the r1s just sound terrible like the the traction control is really invasive and you can just hear it interrupting and and cutting cutting fuel or ignition or however it works none of the other bikes sound like that the bmw is just that smooth inline four screen the ducati is just steady strong no no popping and banging and cutting out i just thought that was interesting it was just unique to the all the r1s were doing it none of the other bikes were doing it it don't it don't sound that great but i think it must be working pretty good because uh they i mean scultz he would definitely for sure was uh pulling you know really being able to get the power to the ground but yeah i mean it sounds like there's an issue well it's it's i've heard that kind of thing before i just in this context i just thought it's interesting that none of the other bikes make any kind of sound like that it's i can't say if it's not working it just it's notable that and it's not you know you see all the bikes squirming around and wiggling and you know just the standard thing that happens when you're on the throttle and the rear wheels moving around because it's essentially spinning to some extent but man that that the noise of the r1 very distinctive and anyway i just thought it was notable performance wise lap time one maybe i guess i guess we'd have to look at the the max speed entering the max speed in that sector to really to really decide if it's working sure i don't know i just touched on the the time practice from friday right okay yeah so in the q2 on saturday cameron bobier ends up leading uh putting in a 122.65 which was pretty freaking fast i haven't looked up what the actual track record was but puts in a really good time pretty good chunk of time ahead of scult to it's about half a second behind with a 123.2 and then pj coming up in p3 with a 23.37 bobby fong in p4 and sean dillon kelly in p5 and jd beach in p6 almost a second behind cam peterson right behind him in p7 with hayden gillum on the honda in p8 and richie escalante uh in p9 i don't have more than that listed for some reason but yeah uh jason uribe uh rounded out the top 10 and brandon posh and then dion campbell on the first cup jake i'm sure you remember at the end of that qualifying sessions there was some issue with the track bike and scultz was in the pits for the final few minutes so you know he did it's like he didn't get to go out there and put in that last banker line yeah i wonder if he would have been able to he might not have been able to take that top spot but he wasn't so yeah good on cam b for getting the duck up there front it turns out turns out it didn't really slow scultz down at all which we'll get to now in race one on saturday the 20 lap race on saturday scultz immediately leaps to the front from his second position on the grid with cam and pj settling in behind and jd in p4 with bobby fong in p5 it's worth noting that pj's hand is still injured from his crash at atlanta and he seemed to be gritting his hands on the ground and he couldn't even do anything besides his teeth and dealing with it but uh i think you might know more about that scott he's he's certainly not fully healed up yeah it's his uh his left hand one of the fingers was pretty badly damaged in that road atlanta crash when he was sliding on the track unconscious and it was stuck up under him he's still struggling with that and it's he had He was giving it all he had and up there as long as he could be. But yeah, it seemed as the longer he was out there, the more it's affected him. Yeah.

So on the second lap, Cam Peterson crashed out coming out of the museum corner. And he got up pretty quickly and was really pissed off. I don't know exactly what happened there, but he was visibly upset about it. I'm not sure if he came together with another rider or not. No, he just tucked the front.

He was, I think, I think J.D. was in second at that point, Fong or J.D. won. And he came in kind of a little bit to the outside, not dramatically offline. And I watched the replay on that a couple of times.

It looks like he might have picked up just a little bit of chatter or maybe let off the break just a little early. But yeah, he was very, very upset with himself. You could tell. And he was. He was kind of a, you know, looked like he, the first few laps, he was like he may have something for scults.

And if he would have been interested in that, we'll just say to see what he could have done. If that wouldn't have happened, if he could have reeled scults back in, would have been a tall order the way Maddie was running. But for the majority of the weekend. But yeah, it was an unfortunate moment for Cam. And another thing to mention just real quick is SDK.

He was apparently suffering a little bit from his qualifying crash because, you know, after turn it. One 22 on Friday, you know, it was just barely bothering the top five. So, and that was a hard crash. I mean, you know, he crashed coming over that, that hill there. Was it the turn nine?

I think it's, I think it's 13, 13 anyway. Yeah. After, after the back straight, there's that. Yeah. Come up over the hill and then you go down and you see, yeah, this was a spot where several people crashed where they're.

They've done that left at the end of the back straight and then they're taking a right hand. And I, I don't know if it's a little off camera, but they're. They're going right. And they're going uphill. And I think it's, it's easy to run wide and, and, and go off the outside of the track there.

Yeah. And when he crashed, you know, that bike, the bike went into the air fence and catapulted off the air fence and, and contacted him. Now it wasn't a violent contact, but I think it was enough along with his tumbling and rolling that, uh, you know, he was a little bit beat up. So yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely worth noting on lap eight or nine. PJ crashed in the same. Spot we just described that SDK had crashed at on Friday and this caused a red flag.

Luckily PJ was up and he looked okay. Yet another red flag at restart, which was kind of, unfortunately, somewhat, somewhat to road Atlanta, sort of a theme this weekend. So they restarted the race with an eight lap distance set at the start. Scouts again, blitzes the field from P two Cameron this time gets a worse start and he finds himself in P five by lap. Four.

Cameron is able to pass Bobby Fong for P two in turn five, six area, and immediately puts makes a nice gap by the final lap. Scouts has a four second lead and JD is able to pass Bobby Fong for P three in the turn four, five, and then holds it to the finish. So JD pretty notable. He, he was kind of lost on Friday, but they figured some things out with the front end of that bike, which he didn't want to do. He described several times, both in some of the interviews that were broadcast and also in the quick talk I had with him and he managed to manage to get, put it on the podium.

So that was, that was great showing his skill again and his capabilities. Um, but sculpts want it easily. Cameron put in a pretty good result coming in second place and JD, like I said, in P three and Bobby Fong pretty close behind in P four and then Richie Escalante putting in a pretty good result in fifth place on the Suzuki. He's, he's finding his speed. I think it's been a little bit of a slow start this season for him, but he's, he's figuring it out.

Then Hayden Gillum, good result on the Honda in sixth place, right behind. And then Sean Dillon Kelly, like you said, putting in an okay result, but he's clearly, clearly somewhat compromised by his Friday crash and Brandon posh. And he ate on the, the other M four X star Suzuki with Andrew Lee in ninth and DM Campbell in 10th. And we'll mention Jeff may putting in a pretty result in P 11 on the Jones Honda. He's subbing in for your friend, Ashton Yates, who's still injured.

Unfortunately, he was at the track though. I saw him hanging out with his knee brace on. He's, he's definitely recovering quickly. I think. Yeah.

Interesting with jail feet. He retired a couple of years ago after, you know, having a pretty, uh, stellar career in meadow America and even a, even a little stint on, uh, the Buell world. And a little, uh, a little bit of a, uh, arm and a leg. Uh, that was a super bike effort. But, uh, yeah, cause, uh, uh, Jeff had road for team hammer.

Uh, the Jordan Suzuki back in the day and had finished out his career on a privateer super stock Honda. So, yeah, when Ashton had his problem at road Atlanta, Darrell Jones, first person he called was Jeff May. And so Jeff came out of retirement after not being on. The back in a while and uh, had a pretty good weekend. So that was cool.

Yeah. Yeah. right it never goes away the super bike race too on sunday scheduled for 20 laps this time pj got a really good start and he led the first lap ahead of skolts and bobier but by lap three jd made a really great pass for the second position on pj around the outside of charlotte's web i thought that was pretty notable i had i haven't really seen too many people pull that but somehow jd was able to get that done yeah uh i did notice bender make that move a couple of times during the super sport race races okay that's not an easy uh not an easy pass so yeah good on jd and also talking about lap three um skolts had passed pj and to take the lead on i guess lap two and i'd heard a comment from him after the race where he said that uh you know that pj was kind of holding him up and he he said i put kind of a hard move on him he said i felt like i had to get by him and get going try to kind of break a gap actually i believe it was coming at the end of lap one coming onto the front straightaway is where skolts made that pass but by lap three he had a one second lead already yeah now skolts i mean it's worth just just saying you know skolts just clearly kind of in his own category right now in this in this series he's just faster than everybody else at least at and at barber just clearly faster nobody really can touch him at this point yep you know bobby a might get that ducati sorted out and and be able to but at this point skolts is kind of in a class of his own at least that that's what it looks like to me yeah really is so by lap six uh after passing jd beach for p2 cameron bobby a tucks the front trail breaking into turn four pretty dramatically we watched that and i think that's a really good point i think that's a really good and he quickly recovered the got the bike back up and rode the bike back into the pits for a couple of repairs and then rejoined the field to finish the race i'm not sure why i guess just for more track time but he did he did get back on and that was kind of it there wasn't a whole lot of other drama uh the race finished with skolts had almost a seven second lead uh jd beach got himself into into p2 and and finished the race with a seven second lead and then he got back on the track finished in p2 which was great improving on his result from saturday and sdk recovered somewhat as well rounding out the podium but he was pretty far back he was 13 seconds back and then richie escalante p4 almost on the podium so he's also i think he's improving and cam peterson finished p5 bobby fong and p6 andrew lee on the honda in p7 with brandon posh on the other m4 suzuki and p8 jeff may as we mentioned earlier getting inside the top 10 and p9 on the jones honda and max flinders rounding out the top 10 on his r1 so beach and uh fong for a bit of that race had a second place but fog seemed to fade a little bit as the race went on and i found out that apparently between road atlanta and barber he had injured a shoulder he was training on a little shoulder so that apparently started kind of showing up as the weekend went on good bounce back for cam peterson to bring that uh wrench uh motorcycle to kati home in the top five and then andrew lee in seventh for the first of the superbike cup machine yeah that's pretty impressive and on a honda no less that's that's great um yeah all right we want to look at the points tell us how the season standings look now in superbike okay in superbike you got maddie matthew scultz on top at 95 sdk at 61 jd at 49 fong at 48 cam bovie a 47 escalante at 40 cam peterson at 34 brandon posh at 33 and uh then your rebate skips down 10th place as far as superbike cup after two two race weekends four races andrew lee holding a pretty commitment to the superbike cup as far as superbike cup after two two race weekends four demanding 95 points over carl sultys with 56 alex dumas with 48 dion campbell with 45 and emmanuel aguilar with 43 jake they will be going this about a week from this recording this time next week they will be in road america in wisconsin and it's going to be interesting to see you got to figure the ducatis and the bmws will be able to rebound a bit there because of the long straightaways uh you know it's a pretty high speed track that generally lends to the those bikes performance advantage seemingly with the top end so uh you know scultz is not going to lay down there for them but it'll be interesting to see how much closer they can can be to maddie as they get into that road america weekend coming up yeah yeah it's a great point i i think road atlanta and barber are tighter tracks or shorter straights that certainly maybe align better with the r1's capabilities um so it'll be interesting to see if things shift a little bit i also wanted to reiterate the story you were telling us on the last podcast about how honda is sort of back into the championship to some degree after a long period of absence and i read somewhere that they're they they put together a really good contingency plan for this year and i think you might be seeing a reflection of that in the superbike cup standings where four of the top superbike cover on hondas and i'd like to think maybe some of that is caused by that new contingency plan that they released for this year can you comment on that yeah that's definitely the case i'm pretty sure because that's actually been in place for the last couple of years okay and uh last two years ago ashton yates was running super stock and hayden gillum was running super bike and super stock and just with the super stock contingency hayden gillum did very well uh at the end of the year with what he or just on the honda contingency uh last year gillum did just run super bike only but uh i'm pretty sure but but yates was still running the super stock and uh there's a lot of uh contingency bucks up for grab there so yeah that's why we're seeing i'm sure more hondas on the especially in that class yeah that's it's it's really good very positive yeah i think they're i think it's just another indication that honda's you know serious about getting back into it uh as we might have said last week they're just not gonna dip a toe in if they're in they're in and it's a great thing to see yeah moving on to twins cup which i believe might be the biggest grids we have this year with about 30 30 riders may super hooligan may be the biggest but it's right there with them yeah okay yeah vossberg just dominated again he's clearly at least at barber got everybody's number on saturday and race one to scheduled for 12 laps hank vossberg just immediately gaps the field right out of the gates by lap six logan cunnison loses some part of his aprilia's engine starts blowing a lot of smoke and has to pull off at the same time kevin almito and matthew chapin having a pretty good battle for p2 with matthew chapin having a pretty good battle for p2 with matthew chapin having a eventually prevailing relegating kevin almito down to the third and last podium spot on the suzuki the finishing order for race one was hank vossberg on the aprilia uh with about a five second lead ahead of matthew chapin and as i said he led kevin almito who's right behind him only about a tenth behind at the finish and then isaac woodworth on on another suzuki about four seconds back and chris parish in fifth place sam drain coming in in sixth place with andrew way in p7 solly mervis in eighth seth gommer and p9 and zachary foster rounding out the 10th position any notes scott uh shout out to chris parish yeah another shout out from one old man to the other um i like that yeah i mean you know chris won the first uh i think it's the first twins cup moto america initiated that class and every year he's like this is probably the first time he's won the first time he's won the first win for me and he keeps coming back and he's you know still still hanging in there with the kids so good on him uh yeah you look at his best lap time and he i mean he's he's not far off he's right there yeah yeah and uh yeah vossberg uh he's kind of picked up where demario left off last year right right he's he's gonna be a tough hombre for the rest of those guys to deal with this year but hopefully they'll kind of make some inroads as the season goes on but uh yeah that's you know definitely uh for uh podium uh final positions on the podium battle between chapin and almedo was was a good race yeah moving on to sunday for race two also scheduled for 12 laps uh vossberg chapin and almedo make a really good start and this time you could tell these guys have decided to not let vossberg get away so almedo is right on vossberg's back wheel for a couple of laps andrew way crashed on last night's race and he's going to be the first one up too and like so many other crashes this weekend maybe not so many but a few other crashes this weekend his bike stopped in the middle of the track i don't know where he crashed again the announcers weren't really identifying the location and i couldn't really tell definitively where it happened i don't know if you if you made a note of that scott yeah and actually i found that to be what could have been a lot worse when reviewing it um he crashed he went wide going into turn one and he got the back turned away from the air fence and but when he there's a place where it's concreted there at the runoff on turn one but when yeah on the on the outside i noticed if they yeah if you run wide you go there it's instead of curbing it's just sort of untreated concrete which when i was watching people run a little wide and run out on the concrete it was pretty terrifying because clearly the grip changes dramatically yeah i know the spot you're talking about yeah so he was able but because of that concrete he was able to get the back turned and but there's a place where the concrete ends and goes to grass and apparently there's a a bit of a drop off there because when he hit that drop off that's when he got into the tank slapper on the grass and came off the bike but even though the bike ended up back in the track it might have been a blessing in disguise jake because i the way it looked if if he would not have dropped the bike there he probably would have came back across the track right right there in front of the rest of the field that was still behind him and it could have been a really bad you know it wasn't an idea either way but i'm thinking it was definitely the lesser of the two evils that that the bike went ahead him and the bike went ahead and went down or he just slowly slid into the racing line instead of him shooting back across it maybe yeah yeah it came to rest in the middle and he immediately got up and was facing the field behind him and waving his arms like he was very concerned for everybody which you know it's always great to see that he he did he did the best thing he could which was to make himself big and noticeable to let everybody know that there was a problem before maybe any of the flags had been put out so this caused a yet another red flag and they did a full restart for a full 12 laps since it had happened so early in the race and again on the at the start of the restart fosberg gets out front again um and by lap four kevin almito crashes out of a coding position from what i could tell he was going really fast up the hill and turned 13 and went off the outside kind of the same place that sdk crashed on friday that we were talking about he hit the air fence pretty hard but they did not red flag it by lap eight logan cunnison's luck turns around after he had an engine problem in race one and finds himself fighting matthew chapin for p3 and eventually gets by him in a really great battle over the last several laps and making a final pass on the back straight to finish on the podium the finishing order for this race again was hank fosberg again with almost a 10 second lead ahead of isaac woodworth and logan cunnison in p3 with matthew chapin right behind him in p4 chris parish again this time one position better in p5 sam drain right behind him in p6 followed by solly mervis in p7 seth dommer in p9 andrew way was able to make the restart and finished in ninth position and zachary foster coming in in 10th place yeah yeah just a couple of quick things uh one was that on friday and bode page one of the upcoming young aussies had a crash and injured his hand and was unable to complete the weekend so that was kind of a bummer uh but he'll he'll be back for road america interesting with kevin almeida uh some some people will remember kevin uh racing in moto america several years ago and uh i believe he was with the altus motor team in super sport and was really starting to turn some heads and he came down with that and i'll pronounce this wrong i'm sure but it's the gillian bars or gillian bars or gillian bars or gillian bars syndrome where it causes you to suffer paralysis and uh but yeah it's it's a condition that has something to do with your nervous system and causes paralysis but anyway he was he was basically out of uh the series and and a long recovery from that yeah you know i i think you talked about this did you i think you may have discussed this to some extent after the road atlanta event i have it sounds familiar but i forget everything now so yeah i may have uh mentioned it i didn't remember it but uh even even so it's worth mentioning again because it's pretty impressive oh absolutely yeah for him to make this comeback and uh because that he was there was a lot of uh doubt whether kevin would ever uh you know even be able to return to racing and he's he's he's from el salvador so he's one of our international entries so it's just good to see him back out there even though he had a problem in that race too it's you know from what we've seen so far daytona in road atlanta in the first race at barber he's he's back and he's competitive and it's just it's heartwarming to see yeah after what he went through no he's extremely competitive and yeah that is it's a great story we'll we'll continue to follow that um thank you for reminding me okay so hank vosberg commanding 136 point lead and first over with 91 in second and then 30 got sam drain with 83 isaac wardworth 68 and bode page as we mentioned earlier still in fifth even after missing a couple of races this weekend at 62 uh kevin almeido he's in sixth at 52 with andrew way at 46 chris parish at 43 seth dahmer at 39 and logan cunison at 35 rounding out your top tip all right thank you scott well we'll move on to the talent cup briefly mentioned qualifying nathan gowker again on the quarterly racing team he he's got the measure of the field at barber i mean he's just way ahead in the qualifying he is almost a full second ahead of sam drain who qualified in second kenzei matsudaira right behind in third and then jake page very close within thousands of a second behind kenzei and in fourth and then nathan betton betton cordon fifth on saturday for race one scheduled for 11 laps pretty dramatic this was one of the more dramatic races of the weekend and i had the fortune of being able to talk to kenzei about this race immediately following it so at the start these kind of top four guys including nathan gowker jake page kenzei and nathan bettencourt they they run into the museum corner which to remind everybody where that is it's the it's kind of 180 degree turn in total and you start it's that really distinctive camera shot where the racing line is over the curb on the outside where they kind of drop down into this downhill right hand corner so they come in there about four wide and kenzei is all the way on the outside on the left side and and he told me afterwards he said i should have backed off but he went in there basically entered the corner in the grass like he wasn't even on the curb he was in the grass and he went down the hill ended up in the gravel on the outside of the exit and he rejoined the race in last place and really made a lot of work for himself yeah he did good not to drop the bike that was yeah no he didn't grace for him he didn't drop it we'll talk about that in a minute and about the same just after that sam drain had an issue with his bike and he pulled off not sure what happened there but some kind of mechanical issue all of this left gowker with a really strong gap right out of the gates on the first lap so i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that he was watching kenzei and he he recovered he showed a lot of i don't know he showed a lot of resolve and a lot of maturity and he just got on with it even though he was at the back of the field he got on with it and started making his way back up through the field by lap seven of 11 with about five laps to go i was looking at the times and he was about five seconds behind the final podium position which at the time nathan betton was occupying but he was lapping more than a second faster so by that math i thought he has a chance here to get on the podium so by lap 10 or 11 i think on the second to last lap kenzei finds himself right behind bettencourt and passes him for p3 and holds that position until the end that was extremely impressive i think kenzei was pretty disappointed because he thought he had a chance to maybe win but you know to watch somebody go off the outside and rejoin the race in last place and be able to come back through the field and finish on the podium is extremely impressive to me so that was definitely within the talent cup that was the story of the weekend for me the final finishing order was nathan easily winning with jake page uh about five seconds behind and like i said kenzei rounding out the podium just ahead of nate bettencourt in fourth uh reese frankenfield in fifth with our local northwest favorite sawyer lafayette coming in in p6 ahead of derrick sanchez in p7 with trace boudreau in p8 colton shaver in p9 and ian fraley in p10 yeah good on kenzei for uh putting his head down after that off and methodically uh pounding his way back up through the field to get that final podium spot yeah he told me that he had to calm himself down and really concentrate on not being upset keeping the emotions out of it and just doing what he had to do and he he certainly was successful in that moving on to sunday's second race it's really the same group of four that are competing for the podium nathan jake kenzei and nathan really are they're ahead of everybody else by mid-race bettencourt sanchez and frankenfield are locked in a really tight pack of three for several laps this was probably the most entertaining thing to watch in the second race the lead group by this point with like five second gaps so it's not a not a whole lot of excitement this time there's a very tight finish between bettencourt and frankenfield for the sixth position and unfortunately sawyer lafayette crashed out somewhere in the middle of the race i didn't know exactly when and galker again easily won and just just showed everybody he really he's kind of untouchable he just has the pace at barber yeah that uh quarterly racing effort uh i don't know if it's going to be a they're they're affiliated in some way with warhorse as well but yeah they've they've definitely got it together of course galker has been doing some racing overseas the last couple of years quite quite a young talent uh kenzei though for the roberts team they're they're showing that uh they've got uh maybe something for him as here goes on along with uh the uh the two aussies jake page and sound brain so yes talent talent cups shaping up uh to be a good year for sure and i'm not sure where rossi garcia was he's he's he's been doing a lot of he was not i didn't see him ever listed on any of the yeah that's a good question you're right because he's kind of missing yeah i think because he was running with the top four or five at road atlanta so we'll have to look into that yeah and it was shaping up to be interesting and i've said this before but it's kind of amazing to see kenny roberts in the paddock i actually was able to sort of like i won't say that i said hi to him but i i said hi to him as he was walking by and he smiled and acknowledged that so that was a good question and i think that's a good question and i think that was a big moment for me hey he didn't shoot you a bird so you didn't flip me off no he was very very very gracious uh so that's really cool to see uh well we'll keep mentioning this just because it's it's great for the series i think all right you're gonna look at these points yeah let's let's do a recap of the season points so far yeah pretty tight got a tie at the top between galker and ken's eye one piece yep fantastic what we want to see yeah three race wins and two seconds for both riders at this point and their worst finish of a 16th so in different orders but across the board for those uh first uh six races yeah it's pretty good jake page holding third down with 90 nathan bettencourt with 62 sam drain with 58 uh sanchez with 50 frankenfield with 50 so there's another tie for sixth and seventh ian fraley at 44 rossi garcia falls down to 42nd after whatever reason was being absent from barbara and then your west coast mate saw your lafayette at 34 rounding out the top 10 i think we'll move on to the final class super hooligans i noticed that and some of you probably noticed as well they had roland sands in the booth announcing the races with roger and jamie that was kind of cool one of the creators of this class is my understanding scott we talked about a rules change that happened this year that affected the harleys were you able to uh get any any more information on that that you can share yeah so i guess it was at the end of last year during the off season they decided to restrict the airflow that the harleys could get into their engines through the velocity stacks they went to a smaller diameter velocity stack to accomplish this restriction of airflow apparently cost them about nine horsepower overall i heard them talking to jake lewis and he said it wasn't that noticeable at daytona as far as overall uh just because of you know the bike is still once it's up to speed and you know the top gears is still pretty much a rocket but he said at the infield at daytona they were really struggling to keep up with the gus rodeo and on the ducati and some of the yamahas but said when they got to barber i said they knew they were in trouble you know you think about it jake that american is basically an adventure bike that's turned into a road race bike it's a big motorcycle however it's 1250 cc's and it's water cooled there there are different if you look up the rules there's pretty detailed on how they allow all these different bikes of such large displacement variations and configurations to compete but they have like an overall horsepower limit i think it's like 125 horsepower and then there's there's weight limits as well or minimum weights i should say depending on the engine configuration if it's air cooled like the arch you have a minimum weight and then if it's water cooled you have a slightly higher minimum weight i saw some photos of the ballast that the pan americas are attaching they just bolt on it looks just like a steel plate that they bolt onto the bottom of the engine to to get to that minimum weight yeah that's one thing they did up during the season last year was they added that weight yeah right so the the pan america is definitely has a big advantage in terms of a very large displacement and being a more modern water cooled configuration it would make sense that that bike is being restricted the most it's also it took me a while to realize it was based on a pan america because really the only thing that you can tell is the same as the engine i i don't even i think maybe maybe the frame is the same but certainly like the forks quite a bit different than than the actual road bike that they sell or it's long too it's very long has a long swing arm it's the same thing they do in next gen super sports balancing where you have different engine configurations and and whatever and they put the these balancing rules into place to try to equalize the disparity from whatever configuration you have from one manufacturer to another you know time will tell the harley riders and super hooligans that they need for it but they obviously feel like they went a little bit too far uh this this time right and maybe maybe after a couple more events they'll they'll adjust again and change things a little bit more you know it's a continual process of balancing they have to continue to update everything they can't they can't get it right at the beginning of the season right it requires results yeah yeah like i say i mean it's nothing to intentionally make the pan non-competitive but in trying to find that sweet spot yeah it's a little hit and miss you know trial and error so yeah and and i know they also with that bike they've always historically had problems with front-end chatter i actually heard him talking to rispoli after the uh second race where he managed to get get his pan-american on the podium on sunday and he made mention of bradley smith ex-moto gp rider that races in the harley davidson bagger for the factory harley davidson bagger designing a some type of set of clamps for the front end of that bike basically said the front end of that bike they changed to about a ten thousand dollar front end to try to overcome that was that was that something they were complaining about in general or because chatter seems to be there are certain parts of specifically barber that seem to generate chatter on a lot of the bikes across the class that people seem to be complaining about chatter regardless of which class apparently everywhere they've gone okay so there's an issue it's yeah rispoli basically said that on sunday morning they warm up that they decided to change back to the old uh front end setup and which was a big undertaking and but he said that's you know definitely uh even though a lot of the chatter that the new front end arrangement had gone away with they said you know a lot of that came back but it still made enough of a difference in another area that you know felt like it was working better for him so yeah that's it says yeah it's not just the it's not just the weight issue or the uh engine restrictions it's it's they were trying to work around several several issues with that and it's like they said him and jake lewis that they were just gonna have to put their head down and work hard try to try to overcome it these things are all interrelated one other interesting thing about super hooligans is that uh jeremy mcwilliams is riding on one of the arch bikes and he came to barber a week after i think getting his first victory at a northwest 200 road race across the pond so that's kind of cool so just a quick look at qualifying mostly because josh harron put in a really good time on the light fighter electric bike on the orange cat racing team of a 2799 put him in front row with a grid next to bryce cornbow that was pretty impressive i'm very excited to see the light fighters out there i think it's great even more variety to the field and jake lewis you know we're talking about the harleys jake lewis is on the second row not too far back again the ducatis though you see all those ducks you know gus rodeo on his it's basically you know it's a v2 right it's very similar to the super sport bike probably slightly more restricted to meet the i think it's a slightly lower horsepower limit in hooligans only slightly i believe it's 125 versus 130 for a super sport so race one on saturday gus rodeo really kind of dominated this weekend he he certainly had the measure of field on his ducati he and bryce cornbow got a great start uh along with cory alexander in p3 you know he's on the second row of the grid he qualified in six but he made his way up to the third position at the start which is cool to see by lap five harron on his light fighter gets himself into p3 he was very competitive and obviously is really good at this track but i found it interesting to think about him jumping back and forth between his super sport v2 ducati and the light fighter i imagine it's maybe almost easier to get on the electric bike because there's less to think about but then jumping back onto the ducati suddenly you've got a clutch lever and shift lever and just more to do so kind of trying to occupy josh's head a little bit and imagine what that was like i'm sure it's pretty easy for him given his just talent and skill and experience this race wasn't too dramatic later on in the race robertino pietri found his way around harron for p3 and they had a little bit of a battle which was cool to watch uh that's kind of all the notes i have the final finishing order was gus rodeo winning by about five seconds ahead of bryce cornbow and robertino pietri then josh harron a couple of seconds back on the light fighter interesting to find out if they you can maintain full power throughout the race it's only eight laps but i'd love to know what the electric stats look like on that thing if they're if they're still at full power or if maybe maybe the battery's starting to fall off a little bit i'd love to know jason waters came in in fifth on another ducati cory west on one of the harleys in sixth place and then corley alexander on the arch in seventh with james rispoli defending champion from last year on the harley's and eighth and then jake lewis on his teammate on the other harley in ninth with andy de brino on the bpr yamaha rounding out the top 10 harron's teammate on the other uh light fighter caleb de carol bringing that second bike home and 11th yep i forgot to mention that and then and then ben gladi and 12th is actually uh part of uh gus rodeo's uh effort a couple of a couple of feedback just outside of the top 10 there and i think you're right this is the largest i stand corrected i see 30 33 finishers on saturday compared to the twins cup which i think is about 30 yeah it was kind of cool i may have mentioned this to you but when we when i first arrived at the track i think it was on friday morning people getting out of their cars and this little kid that was kind of trying to get his dad's attention he's like dad dad dad finally dad says what is it what is it he says who do you think is going to win super hooligans it was kind of a cool little moment like see a little kid following the series following that class sure good good on dad for fostering a next generation of fans when that's right yeah that's right all right so we'll move on to race two on sunday this was a little more dramatic we'd love to know because josh was more competitive uh on sunday on the light fighter and i wonder if they wonder if they made any changes uh to that bike because he he just blitzed the field from the start got the whole shot uh from p3 on the which honestly is what i would expect i mean if the electric bike is good for anything it's good for getting off the line and he did that and he led the race for a while for like the first four laps um with rodeo kind of shadowing him he didn't wasn't having any trouble keeping up but he was just just staying right behind josh he eventually made a pretty great pass actually on josh for the on the inside of uh turn 14 i believe and held that till the end on the last lap cory alexander's arch had some kind of a problem and he had to pull off the side of the track that was kind of kind of too bad right at the end there was a fairly ugly crash at the museum corner at the top just before they drop in meant to make a note of the riders i believe one of the riders numbers were 440 but they were really close together and they kind of got tangled up and kind of slid slid down the grass together i think they were both okay but luckily that didn't cause the red flag probably because it was on the last lap so josh harron managed to hold on to p2 and james raspoli recovered somewhat from saturday's results and put in a podium result on the harley jason waters finished in p4 on a ducati with jake lewis on the other settlement harley and p5 and robertino pietri not quite as good as saturday i mean in p6 on his yamaha christ kornbau and seventh caleb de carol and the other light fighter coming in p8 this time which was an improvement from saturday so both the light fighters had better sundays than saturdays leads me to kind of believe maybe they improved something on the bike uh andy de brino came in a ninth and hawk missoula rounded out the top 10 points wise after this uh second weekend for super hooligans counting daytona and now to barber you had gus rodeo holding that top spot at 72 points raspoli managing to maintain second with jake lewis third at 65 and 59 respectively and then cory west at 50 so their daytona performances uh you know it's kind of kept them up there in the points so if they can start making some strides and some of the obstacles they've got to overcome hopefully they can you know stay up there and make that a points battle interesting throughout the rest of the year uh bryce kornbau on the yamaha 48 points in fifth from robertino pietri and sixth 42 points jason waters on the ducati 40 points and seventh josh harron eighth on the light fighter 33 tied with andy de brino at 33 on the yamaha and travis wyman 23 points and he's also on a harley he wasn't here this weekend though was he he wasn't racing at barber no i don't think so and that's a you know he's on the different i forget which model it is but it's not the pan-american it's actually which was kind of funny i mean it was like are they really racing that thing out there i thought that was kind of entertaining but was he isn't he he's in the baggers right i think he's doing the uh the the baggers uh the the that's affiliated with meadow gp this year oh that's right yeah he's in the world series of baggers i think the world world so i think daytona was just kind of a a one-off for him maybe might have been i'm not sure yeah or maybe he just you know he can't do two weekends at once so he had to prioritize but that's all the racing just one real quick thing on the super hooligans i did see uh some comments from harron uh after the race and i'm sure you noticed it along with everybody that was there spectating on the warm-up lap you know how slow the light fighters would go trying to conserve battery power yeah but harron said the downside to that was the first three or four laps he didn't feel like he had proper heat in the tire to you know go full bore of course on the warm-up lap was that something so i didn't notice did they go slow on the warm-up lap on saturday as well or was that only on sunday i don't know about this but he did and apparently sunday wasn't so much of an issue but he did say on saturday that the last few laps he started you know losing power so well they it seemed like that didn't happen on sunday now they must have made some adjustments or did something a little bit different yeah wasn't a problem on sunday do we want to visit this red flag ben smith crash on the back straight that we were talking about at the beginning touch on it briefly yeah i think it's worthy of a discussion a friend of mine was there at the track that uh and i know him and you were having some discussions after the ben smith crash about concerns with the corner marshalling and whatever and then as of course the aladraer crash and just the number of red flags of course i'm on the weir forums and there's all kinds of everything some of it relevant and some of it maybe not so much but usually you can find some some good pros and cons from a different viewpoints there there was some comments about they thought the corner marshalling was lax and that you know maybe protocol wasn't being followed and one of the guys on there actually is a corner marshal you know he made the comment he said most you know guys out here doing this and it's all volunteer you know so he said but most of the most of us quite a while but when they bring a new person in and you volunteer they will pair them up in a corner with an at least one if not two experience more experienced corner but they still have a problem getting enough corner marshals for most of them to volunteer for that yeah so the thought is is that that's one reason you may see more red flags sometimes when you really wonder if the incident warranted a red flag is that some of the corners some of the races moto america races they just don't have enough corner workers to go out and properly retrieve the bike and the rider from the gravel or wherever in a timely manner and for safety's sake they have to go ahead and throw a red to get things sorted out yeah that that makes sense i hadn't really considered that explanation it because depending on the the incident especially the ben smith incident my impression of that incident was that they didn't throw the red soon enough that was what it how i saw it it was like what are you guys doing you're still futzing around there where's the red flag it's an extremely dangerous situation and again each corner is different and maybe on that back straight you know it's very rare for someone to crash end up where he did because he did end up no one would ever end up there if they high-sided out of you know the right hand entering front straight and no one would end up there if they crashed trail breaking into the into the left at the end so maybe they deduced that it was actually not a very dangerous position i don't know it seemed like they were there for a while without a red flag yeah i mean realistically the friend i mentioned that was there he was concerned that he said he didn't see any or enough waving yellows but i told him i said from where we were setting he wasn't back there with us when that happened i don't believe from where we were setting there's a flag station outside of the kink on the where they go into the back straight but it's not a flag station it's a flag station it's a flag station it's a flag station it's recessed back from our viewing area where we were yep so you we couldn't see it i would i would be very surprised if if there wasn't a waving yellow there you're right the you know ben smith was not in a impact zone per se but there was a lot of unless well unless someone else had the same crash that he did and then he was right in the impact zone under a waving yellow nobody should have been coming through there full bore anyway with that being said there was a lot of debris on the track so somebody would have came through there and cut a tire on debris carbon fiber piece of carbon fiber whatever could have possibly you know ended up in that area even though it's not a normal place you're gonna end up you're gonna see somebody go in a crash but as far as the the red flags and the corner workers the corner workers they do not have the call on throwing a red flag no they have to wait until they're instructed yep they radio what to race control right and then race control will make the decision to throw the red that's and in the aladre situation there was there again people saying well they should have been doing this they should have been doing that they were doing what they were supposed to do there was waving yellow approaching that area and it was and they had i'm sure relayed to race control and race control could probably see on the video what was going on i applaud those guys that get out there and do that i mean you know we couldn't race without them one and number two that's not an easy job yeah you get a you get a really good seat vantage point but you're out there all day i applaud the guys that do it i wouldn't mind trying it if i was a little bit younger man i guess you could say and also i wasn't trying to do what i call the poor man media thing there so i've done it it's a it's a very good experience it gives you a different appreciation of how fast things change and how stressful it is when there is an incident very critique these things from afar and in retrospect but and the riders really appreciate you oh 100 no it's it's um i mean i i didn't i guess in moto gp they sort of have they probably have paid corner workers i don't know how it works but they certainly have it always looks like there's at least five or even ten corner workers at every corner there's a lot i think i've heard at coda that there are some there maybe moto gp has some full-time corner workers but i think even like at maybe at other places there is uh they're still volunteers yeah no i think you're right but certainly you know when i was walking around the track i was sort of taking note of the corner worker situation and there was sort of two or three at each corner i don't think i ever saw more than three so yeah that's you watch these guys trying to yard a crashed bike out of the gravel and these things are it's not a not a dirt bike they're much heavier pretty difficult to drag through the gravel especially if they can't get it new troll or they just don't roll through the gravel very well so it is very challenging to quickly get a bike out of an impact zone with only two or three people i think when you have five or six it's much easier well hopefully where we've seen the the worst of this kind of a red flag elevated situation after these first couple of rounds and uh yeah but i i do think that point is interesting that perhaps the what seems like a a large number of red flags might be actually explained by what you said which is that they simply what could be a yellow flag if they had more corner workers turns into a red flag because they cannot deal with the crash quick enough right that's something that probably a lot of people haven't considered including me so i appreciate the appreciate that point yeah and if you if you've done it yourself what you have you i'm sure you know uh how difficult it is just with just a couple of people with much less you know two or three or four much less just two people trying to roll a wrecked bike out of a gravel trail yeah it's really difficult all right so uh moving on to road america as we said earlier for the about a week a week away from this recording time we're doing now and uh looking forward to that road america beautiful track uh the longest track that we race on well maybe besides coda but it's a true natural flowing road course i mean that to me that's the closest thing to a european top proper road course that we have here in america is road america and uh should be a great weekend of racing it'll be interesting to see if the bmws and the ducatis can eke out a little bit of revenge on the scults and the strack yamaha we'll we'll see yeah and the other yamahas as well don't forget attack yeah i mean yeah maybe bobby will be back to fonger will be back to full fitness and uh yeah him and jd they're they're not slouching for sure so yeah should be a good weekend looking forward yeah all right well keep listening for the six interviews that we got i think they'll be pretty informative we will see you at the next show thanks for listening and please consider supporting the show any way you can every dollar helps that does it for episode 840 see you next time zoom zoom zoom zoom here in the orange cat racing bmw pit uh here with jason uribe rider of the number 36 uh superbike uh jason thanks for joining us on moto pod yeah happy to be here great yeah at the end of the day on friday first couple of sessions of practice and i guess they still call it q1 i know they switched things up a little bit this year but uh yeah so after the end of the day the second session ended up seventh overall times are uh down in the 123s i think uh your teammate got in down into 122 so you guys are definitely uh hauling it out there so so what's just kind of your thoughts after the first day here at barber yeah i mean for the whole race team it's been a stressful day both the light fighter and us with sean coming in p1 and me p7 for us on my side we made some big changes uh we got a weird tire in the first part of q1 and kind of set us back a little bit but as soon as we put another tire in we were right back up where we wanted to be i'm happy with our finishing position i know if i can just clean up my lap a little bit we'll we'll be right there and on for the podium so i'm really excited for tomorrow we'll have race one and then yeah just kind of go from there we're throwing some pretty big setup changes at the bike right we know we have the pace so we might as well experiment a little bit and yeah i'm excited for tomorrow so coming out of road atlanta after the race weekend there what's some things that you guys kind of brought out from there and uh have been able to you know bring into barber here and you know with some ideas of maybe some things you might need to do a little different for me road atlanta was a little bit of a rough weekend i ended up fracturing a bone in my wrist on friday so it was a little bit more of a survival round for me in that case but i think i uh the biggest lesson i learned is just the better way to ride this bmw at pace it's something that we've done testing at we have a lot of experience with the bike in general but at race pace it's kind of another level so yeah we came from atlanta we learned a lot tried to recover as much as i could before we got here and my wrist is feeling pretty good i mean there's a couple places it's still sore but at the end of the day we're here to ride and that's what we're going to do the biggest lesson that i learned is tire management so that's one thing i'm going to really focus on tomorrow and sunday and go from there and of course i guess the forecast is for things that heat up a little bit as the weekend goes on really nice day today i'm sure track is probably a little grazier this afternoon and you know i don't know how much more that will increase during the weekend as the temps bump up into the i guess upper 80s near 90 by sunday they're saying so what are you thinking about that is you see any any things that you guys you know may need to look after that or you think you're just on a good course now just to move forward through the weekend like you said as the temps rise the track usually gets a little bit more greasy so i think this afternoon was a a good testament to what it's going to be like especially on sunday when it is that warm so a little bit less grip from the rear a little bit less confidence from the front but at the end of the day all of us have to deal with it so if someone can go fast we should all be able to go fast and that's really what our job is as riders and we'll make it work so last year you were on the uh the super stop and uh some of the differences it's your experience full-bred super bike from uh you know the super stock package last year every time i answer this question it always makes me laugh but it's it's honestly there's more different about the super bike than there is similar uh different chassis swing arm triple clamps suspension electronics it's the same engine block but a different build different transmission different brakes i mean there's there's really not much that is similar so for me it was almost like relearning how to ride a brand new motorcycle so it's been a bit of a process i'm still learning every time i hop on this bike it's i'm learning something new and today for us we made a big step as far as pushing the limits of the bike so again for me it was uh i'm at that point right now where things still make me scared and i'm fighting to get better and better at pushing that limit little by little and yeah every time i get on the bike i'm just trying to be better than i was last time switching gears here a little bit uh something uh you know i know some people know about you uh i'm sure a lot of the listeners that uh your day job i guess we'd call it or rest of the week job as a firefighter out on the west coast uh tell us a little bit about that i think that's just such a such a neat parallel to uh you know racing a fire-breathing super bike on some weekends and then you're out fighting massive wildfires on other during you know other times of the year give us a little bit of insight on on that part of your life oh man honestly the the fire department changed my life for the better and it's changed the way i approach risk especially and i think that over to the to the racing side of things i think the biggest advantage that i see being in the fire department and racing is just the mental fortitude under pressure trying to be able to function and make smart choices when the pressure is on and when you're in those high intensity moments it's something that they drill into you in the fire academy and every time i every time i go on a call every time i go on a fire i know that not only my life is on the line but others are as well and that's a huge responsibility something that i don't know if i was ready for until i really got into that scenario and i try and take that same mental outlook into racing like i know that i'm here to do my job i'm paid to do my job and at the end of the day others are as well so i need to make sure not only am i looking out for myself but i'm looking out for my fellow riders and yeah i want to beat them i want to be the best that's why we're all here at the same time we all need to go home so i'm happy i love i love my life i'm very very lucky and i'm trying to make the most of it excellent and i know you were involved to some extent last year with the awful fires out in california around the palisades and all so that had to be just a surreal experience but to be able to go in there and actually try to help out you know that's pretty awesome oh yeah the the palisades fire in specific i was there i was almost first on scene and it was at the point where we got there and looked small it really was kind of shaping up to be not a big deal an easy fire and then within about three minutes it tripled in size and we very very quickly realized that this is going to get out of control very quickly and that was uh that was quite an experience i was on that fire for three days missed my flight and at the end of the day it just goes to show you never really know what you're going to roll up to and as much as you try to prepare at some point sometimes you get a curveball and it's just making the most out of what you got if that if that don't give you mental fortitude i don't know what would so just just one last thing real quick uh jason uh so you guys are i guess you'd say the official bmw team here in the moto america super bike class this year how closely is alpha uh working with you guys do you have alpha personnel here on race weekends with you or how's that working out we do so we work hand in hand with alpha all the time obviously you can't see it but we have the owner of alpha racing to our left and we have three alpha racing employees that run all of our data so we have a very very close relationship with them it's kind of a hand in hand where we are developing prototype parts for alpha then they take what we give them from the race team the knowledge the experience and then they go produce that for everybody to use so it's a mutually beneficial partnership and it's just been a pleasure and a dream come true to not only work with alpha but with bmw as well and man every time i every time i wake up i just have to pinch myself and tell myself it's not a dream so there's a lot of pressure there's a lot of expectations but i'm here to do my job and i'm gonna do it to the best of my abilities and i'm excited to take it on that's awesome i've been i've been watching your race for quite a few years and to see you get this opportunity i it's special for me just because i know you've you know been through kind of some rough times i guess you'd say you know in it you know i've been in the paddock you know trying to hang in the paddock and uh to see to see you with this uh in this situation now it's it's uh i'm i'm very glad for you thank you i appreciate it yeah it's been quite the journey but i wouldn't trade it for the world good deal hey jason i appreciate your time here at the end of the day on friday we look forward to seeing how you able to progress through the rest of the weekend best of luck and throughout the rest of the year thank you sir appreciate it thanks man okay here in the ray hall ducati moto with dron and the bmw roplight pits on a friday evening after a couple of rounds of practice and uh i guess they still call it q1 qualifying and we're with the uh for now top qualifier top qualifier at red atlanta too kayla one of the uh up and come in uh anybody that follows the sport so excited about what she's doing out here kayla thanks for being on the moto pod yeah no problem at all no thank you for uh for saying all that yeah we've had a pretty good year so far so it's uh good to see all the support you know i've gotten a lot of support over the last year and i'm really excited to be here in the last few months uh with with the successes of this year so far so hopefully we can keep uh keep going in that direction and obviously starting the weekend here in barber has been uh pretty good so we just gotta try to maintain that p1 all weekend i'd be pretty happy you know it's funny i mean you can see how you're you know progressing year by year on the track but just maturing your mentality and whatever it's like i mentioned to you earlier when i was trying to nail down a quick chat with you i said i could never catch you in the past because in the evenings you'd be out on the pit bike with you know some of the other people that were out on the pit bike other guys and uh so yeah it's good to good talk to you but yeah it's showing just all the the progress you're making in all areas obviously yeah thank you no it's uh it's been a long run you know i feel i feel almost old in the paddock because it's been a long time and you know i've i've been here since i was 14 years old and um this will be my i think fourth or fifth season in moto america so i'm just happy to happy to be out here uh doing what i love and just enjoying it you know every every season we learn more and more and obviously as uh as the seasons go we get higher and higher up in the in the ranks which is cool but yeah definitely a little bit more professional now than than it used to be you know running around with the friends but now we're sitting here long days with data long days going over that stuff and it's pretty exhausting you just want to go home after the day so that's pretty pretty much it but still loving riding motorcycles absolutely so just real quick on road atlanta of course like i said you took top spot in qualifying there races uh you know went good but i'm sure you know left a left a little bit of a chance to get a little bit of a chance to get a little bit to long for what was the situation yeah i just uh yeah exactly what you said you know i i qualified on pole and that was a huge confidence boost because road atlanta has always been a very tough track for me um i don't know why i just i've never really gelled with that track super well and uh in the past here with the ducati i've always struggled so uh to come in and to qualify on pole was was awesome and i was really excited for the weekend we had some unfortunate stuff happen in uh in the first race where i really felt like we had a podium safely secured and yeah just kind of ran into some lap traffic and didn't exactly do what lap traffic was supposed to do so it was a little unfortunate lost that on like the last lap and then the second race you know just battling for the podium again but kind of feeling like a sitting duck not able to really make those overtakes uh just lacking quite a bit in the braking zones with with settings and and just the feeling in general so you know it was a lot to go home with i was definitely disappointed because i i felt like we definitely had a podiums in the race and i didn't have the cards for that race but um it was good to show our speed you know again it was a track i struggled with a lot so uh overall happy but just uh hungry made me really hungry and we went went to work over the over the last few weeks to try to make the bike better and to improve in that area and really feel like a better better race bike you know we had a really good qualifying bike but we needed a better race bike so that's what uh we've been working on and we're ready to go yeah now you're all into barber which you uh obviously are quite fond of yeah i love love barber um you know barber is a like a home track to me almost i've been coming here since i was i think nine years old nine or ten years old uh with wiera and doing all the gnfs down here and uh yeah i've like met so many people here that i i constantly see over the years and like i said it's almost like family to me and like home so i love this place my favorite track on the calendar and uh yeah it's always always a blast coming here yeah it was showing out there first we have my first podium at this track in 2021 on the junior cup bike in like the monsoon weather but uh yeah no i've won races here i've gotten on the podium a lot here so this is probably one of my most um i guess you know tracks with with the most amount of victories or podium success so it's uh it's good i'm excited that's awesome well kayla hey we just look forward to see what you're able to do for the rest of the weekend uh looks like you're uh definitely up for some uh maybe that top stuff who knows yeah so uh confidence is brimming we can tell and just look forward to seeing how you how you do the rest of this weekend and the season moving ahead it's awesome uh you know i know you don't like i know you're just a racer you know you don't like to differentiate between the men and the women but you know just to see what you're doing out there you know against former champions and whatever really awesome and uh just just great for the sport so thanks for joining us here on motopod yeah no problem at all and thank you thank you very much for i'm trying my best you know obviously being a female in the sport is not something you can't can't always you know you have to talk about it because there's there's not a lot of them so it's uh it's cool i'm able to fly that flag and hopefully do a lot of people proud there and just yeah excited for a good weekend and thanks for having me on awesome thanks kayla no problem okay we're here at barber motorsports park for uh round two of the moto america super sport season well actually round three daytona gotta remember daytona anyway we're here in the uh roller dive form ray hall ducati pits with alessandro demario alessandro thanks for joining us on moto boat thank you guys for having me absolutely man i mean you know we've been watching you for quite a few years now coming up through the ranks kicking tail taking names everywhere you've been so uh you know junior cup uh twins cup uh you made the step up into super sport this year with the with the ray hall ducati uh yeah so got your first daytona 200 under your belt had your first regular round i guess we could say it rode atlanta and now we're here barbers you know three races well three race weekends in just barely so what's the main thing you're you know difference you're seeing you know trying to adapt to the super sport bike from the you know the smaller box you broke previously yeah i mean the the super sport bike definitely has a lot more adjustments to it so it takes uh quite a bit longer to get used to and uh it's just this the speed difference like when i've been to a track for like a couple years now on the same bike like i already know what i'm doing where i'm breaking where i'm getting on the gas and now i'm i'm lost everywhere i go and i have to relearn what to do because you know it's different spots where you need a break you know different lines it just takes a little bit of of adapting my riding style to it and just figuring out what i like on it so we've got day one under your belt here uh with a practice session and i guess they still call it the q1 session uh and uh your fourth uh after the second session so you're starting to wrap your head around it a little bit it's kind of looking like yeah i really like this track so it definitely helps i think you know it's a track where i'm confident at so i think you know what i would like the bike to do and working around it and uh i mean everything is coming in a place so the bikes felt better and better like all throughout all the past rounds and even right now it feels the better that it's felt so um just looking forward to tomorrow and seeing seeing what we can do and seeing if maybe we can make some changes or just adapting to the changes that we made and then just trying to go a little faster weather-wise today not bad uh you know cool breeze and uh you know really beautiful day supposed to get hotter as the weekend goes on i assume the track is probably going to get a little greasier how is that going to play into your uh during the team's plans moving forward for the rest of the weekend i think how we had the track this afternoon is probably just about how the track is going to be all weekend so i think we got plenty of data from this qualifying session and then we're going to get data also tomorrow in the race so i think we're in a good spot i think all of us are in a pretty good spot because i'm pretty sure this afternoon was just about as high as it will be in the race in the races i think we got to figure it out we just need to place ourselves in a good position and try to get a good start what's it like uh you know having a former world champion in your corner and ben speeds uh they've got a couple of his world super bike uh you know championship back over here and one of his championship ama uh super bike so that's gotta be pretty cool yeah i mean it's great he's great you know he's helping us a lot definitely even gave me some tips earlier like had to uh adjust my riding style a little bit and you know he was saying like some different lines that i should be taking and stuff and it really did help i dropped my time right after that so yeah i mean he's he's a great guy and he definitely helps out a lot yeah it's great to have him back here in the paddock he's got quite a few laps around here you know it's it's it was definitely a good move on the ground to uh signed in on for the uh that team manager role to help you guys out some but uh anyway so yeah you you know you guys are uh three out of the top five i guess today kayla of course was uh p1 josh i believe p2 and you and number four yeah you guys are rolling uh so you know what's looking ahead to the race that's coming up any you know any anything in particular that's coming to mind as far as you may try to you know race strategy or anything or just wait till the green flag drops and just see how it plays out yeah i mean there's there's not a lot of strategies especially around this place i feel like the best strategy is probably just getting a good start and uh because it's it's kind of hard to pass around here so as long as i can position myself well and then i mean you never know what happens in the race like i don't know what the pace is going to be and everything so i guess just try to hang with everyone i think i don't know i don't really know if anyone's going to break away but i definitely think that the pace is going to be slower than than qualifying in the race yeah it ought to be some great race and we're really looking forward to it and i'm gonna let you get back here and do a little debriefing with your crew and uh just appreciate the time to get to chat we have been looking forward to sitting down with you for the last few years and uh yeah glad glad we got to do it today best of luck for the rest of this weekend and through the rest of the season can't wait to see how you progress uh looking forward to it and we'll see you guys next week. forward to you putting it on the box and uh you know maybe even more as the year goes on of course thank you yeah thanks okay here in the track racing uh yamaha pits saturday evening and here with today's super bike race winner maddie scultz matt good job today buddy thank you sir yeah i mean very surprised with how that race went um you know i could kind of see in the practice that i had a little bit of time in the first few laps but to win by 3.5 seconds was very surprising i'm just pumped to be back up in the superbike class and get two out of three wins so far um just just shocked but i just just want to keep it up man yeah you can tell you're just a little bit motivated yeah yeah i mean after doing super sport for two years we're winning that you know kind of really gave me confidence that i can be back up back up at the sharp end of the superbike field but you know thinking that you can and actually doing it are two very very different things but like i've shown that i'm still there so i'm just really happy and we want to continue this one yeah and you know right atlanta you dominated that first race there and the second race uh you know it's looking pretty good and you had a little mechanical there but you know still bagged a second then come out here and win race one today so set you up pretty well for tomorrow and the rest of the season but uh start today you know had that first segment had a red flag delay but that first segment cam was hanging there with you yeah you know you were you were holding your own and on he didn't get the best start but whether it had anything for you or not i don't know maybe we'll see tomorrow yeah i mean i know in the first part of that race um we've been having problems tearing the front tire so i was just trying to keep a decent pace that there wouldn't be too many guys but i wasn't pushing on the on the limit because i was worried about tearing the front tire um you know so once the restart went off and there was only eight laps i just went help for valet the first couple laps and you know opened up a pretty decent gap and i think i did get fortunate that cam was was was maybe battling with fong and jd and them but i'll take that luck man man we're sitting on the back straight over there you know we're spectators before anything so uh watching you come through that kink under the back straight man that was the thing of beauty yeah i know that's um it seems that sector four is one of the better sectors for me um i definitely like the high speed flicking it left to right kind of kind of stuff and use my size maybe there a little bit but i've always been pretty quick in that sector so i'm glad i give the fans something to kind of cheer for i guess yeah you got a few laps in around this place yeah i mean should i started racing in this championship 2016 you know 10 years on being to this track every single year and some of the best races have been up before me you know so i just really pumped to be back here i get another super black win and hopefully try to get one more tomorrow absolutely so going into tomorrow i don't know what the weather is going to do maybe a little bit hotter maybe a little bit cooler but i'm a little grazier i don't know you guys uh thinking about any changes for now to tomorrow or just kind of maybe sticking with what you got i mean look pretty good today what do you think on that um i definitely think we want to try to focus on maybe conserving the front tire more there's a couple spots where i was like you know spinning up bad so i really want to do the debrief soon and kind of look at those spots and just figure out where we can kind of maintain those low 23s for more laps because it feels like the tires are kind of dropping more badly here so i think if you want to win tomorrow you're going to have to stay in the low to mid 23s for you know minimum 14 15 laps yeah and if we get up into the uh we're in the low 80s today so get up into the high 80s tomorrow possibly could be a challenge but i'm sure you guys can adjust for that yeah i mean like i said now we kind of you know have to look at the data see where we can kind of make up time um you know take out power somewhere to kind of help me steer slightly better just to not have to work the front tire too too hard but you know riding in the higher heat uh this is what i trained for you know so i'm kind of pumped that we can have these longer um you know harder races and and i hope you tomorrow don't have to battle somebody on the last couple laps but you know we'll just take it as they come i guess good deal maddie good good job today good to see you getting off to a great start this season good to have you back in the premier class so it's where you belong and uh yeah man just appreciate gracious to spend time with us here on moto pod as you have in the past you're i think you're definitely one of the the show favorites when it comes to the moto a paddock yeah thank you thank you guys i'm just going to keep on doing what i do and hopefully people like to watch it thank you absolutely thanks maddie okay cheers guys see you around i'm here with kente matadaira at the team kr pit after talent cup race one and that's how you have a hell of a race tell us a little bit about it yeah so on the first lap i mean i got a decent start stayed in second um went down in charlotte's made a pass uh nathan got under me on the exit kind of stood me up quite a bit messed up my drive a little bit uh sam got around me uh right before in third and six and i stayed on the outside i probably should have gotten behind him but i stayed on the outside and i just i didn't want to let the position go and i got sent out all the way into the grass off the outside of that curve that everybody goes over exactly and then uh back onto the track in last place no so i went off the track into the grass got back on the outside of the track and then went back into the gravel almost hit the uh the air fence oh turned it around got back out and last probably about like three seconds back from last place and then from there just head down just try not to be frustrated yeah i mean i worked my ass off just trying to stay consistent not make any mistakes it looked like you succeeded it looked you looked super smooth and you were just catching everybody and working your way through and methodical and then you had about a five second gap i don't know what lap it was i think it was about you had about five laps to go and you were about five laps behind bettencourt yeah but you had more than a second i'm on him for a lap and i'm like i think he i think he's gonna catch him and he caught him quicker than that yeah i mean i saw that i don't know if it was only had like three laps on the board and i had like a three second gap three four second gap so uh you know i just had to really focus not make any mistakes uh obviously uh well not obviously but i was struggling with the chatter all weekend uh qualifying practice front chatter front chatter uh throughout and then in the race we made a pretty big change from qualifying it i don't think it really helped so yeah you know it's it's that's how it goes it's not necessarily a bad thing you know it's um part of the part of knowing which direction to go in but anyway yeah i don't i don't think we went in the correct direction and um yeah i mean i was struggling with chatter i feel like more than anybody else when does it happen when is it most when is it chattering the most like what part of the corner is are you like when you're cranked over all the way and the front is pushing yeah it's like right after you release the brakes right before you get on the gas that little like coasting moment yep that's where the chatter really pops in yeah it always comes in at a certain lean angle as well um we just have to you know adjust the bike setup a little bit uh maybe a lot i'm not sure for tomorrow right yeah i mean yeah so going back to being three seconds back uh you know i knew i had to put my head down just stay consistent um not be silly not try to push super hard not too hard uh just catch him at the perfect time i caught him on the last lap i was able to pass him uh going to charlotte's and it looked like you had a small little battle after that but it didn't last very long yeah well sorry no i just passed him on the second to last lap in turn 11 turn 10. sorry i was completely off no no it's fine yeah so yeah i passed him in turn 10 uh i was kind of expecting to just kind of drop him um honestly but i looked i took one look back that whole race uh and it was right before charlotte's web i took a look at charlotte's web look back and he was right there so i was like okay well i guess i have to keep pushing as hard as i can and uh in the end i was able to get a better drive and just hold my position so you know i'm still happy to be on the on third absolutely podium i mean that's the kind of race that builds a lot of character and shows a lot of character on your part to be able to gather yourself up and recover like that and really recover back to the podium i mean i mean that's amazing like that you should be proud of that that's not an easy thing to do like you said you have to really mentally just calm yourself down and get back in it right you didn't make any mistakes after that i don't mean i didn't i i made a couple small ones maybe yeah trying to just try to push too hard uh but you know it really helped me dial it back just a little bit um just really focus or really it it really helped me uh realize uh and remember what the goal is and it's to just gain points in the championship absolutely um i didn't want to throw anything away uh if i had to settle for fourth then i would have done that i would have done it settled for fourth but obviously i saw the opportunity so you know i had to take it but yeah i don't know if you have a couple more minutes and if you don't i just wanted to ask you like how did this whole kr kenny robert i mean it's a big deal having kenny roberts back in the pits it's drawing a lot of attention it's like wow look that's kenny he's on the freaking grid with you like that's amazing this guy is a living legend yeah can you give us like a quick synopsis of how that all came together yeah so well two years ago or yeah last year at the beginning of season we uh we had some mutual friends with um penny and his crew at the time uh they were doing some pre-season testing with cody cop their rider from last year yeah and uh you know like i said we had some mutual friends so we went up to truck walla we pitted with them we rode with them for a couple days and then uh we kept in contact we kept in touch uh over the season uh i did a wild card at coda for talent cup last year for the road racing world team and uh i i did i got second and f due to mechanical but and then at the end of the season they reached out um they asked if we wanted to race the season obviously you can't say no to the king oh no yeah so we took the opportunity and uh yeah here we are oh that's great man that's fantastic well i won't take any more of your time but good luck for the rest of the season thank you you're killing it and it's amazing to see and bike is by far the best looking bike on the grid without a question thank you let me just thank the people real quick absolutely um first i have to thank obviously arnie and amy wick uh they're kind of like the team managers kenny his wife kenny jr his wife as well their whole family my dad the mechanics uh kramer for the bike moto america dunlop hjc helmets uh dave designs alpine stars uh iconic motorbikes oh and the uh fujiko brakes oh yeah yeah what's the deal with the brakes thing i heard you talking to sean bryce about that yeah so um the brakes they're uh like a manufacturer from japan and um they i'm not exactly sure how they know kenny but they know kenny and we did some tests in the beginning of their pre-season and uh the brakes have been working great so far so is it like calipers rotors uh right now i think it's just uh rotors okay um so we're still using the brembo calipers i believe if i'm wrong then you might want to edit that out i'm not sure what pads we're using but yeah so far it's just the rotors okay cool obviously you're allowed to change that kind of stuff on the bike yeah yeah it's very minimal as long as you follow the rule book but yeah right okay you can change stuff but yeah that's that's i think about everybody that i want to thank and if i'm forgetting people then just um everybody else at home oh absolutely well thanks kenze thank you pleasure and look forward to seeing some more good results this year thank you best of luck see you at another round i'm hoping to be at the ridge and laguna sounds good we'll be at those two as well awesome thank you great it's uh thanks for your time yeah for sure thank you all right thank you appreciate it i'm here with jd beach on attack doma hub jd had a pretty good day today podium in superbike so jd that was that was a pretty awesome race man we were watching you were uh you looked like you were you had the base you got there tell us a little about it yeah it was a tough race for sure feeling strong i i was looking forward to this race and we had a rough friday it was uh it it was tough i was off pace a little bit we were struggling with the bike but the team just never quit working and i left the track friday night and the bike was completely apart and they were trying stuff and i got back to the track this morning and the thing was still apart there i mean they're they're working hard and uh yeah i mean even going into to the race they were changing stuff on the bike and this team they they don't quit working so so for me it really motivates me to just keep digging deep and i didn't know how this race would play out and i and i felt really good from the start of the race and uh i i think the red flag helped me a little bit because i i felt like i had good pace and so the red flag kind of bunched us back up together so did you get a good start on the second on the second run on the restart did you get a good start my start was good but i i made a mistake and i went back to first gear and uh in turn two so so the bike was uh was on the limiter going through two so then it kind of let uh thong and and schultz kind of get a gap so i had to shift from first second third fourth real quick but but yeah i mean it was just a little bit of a mistake i lost some time but it wasn't horrible nice nice that's that's a good recovery what kind of if you're you know you don't have to go into detail what kind of problems were like on friday what was like specifically what was it doing that was slowing you down yeah i was struggling quite a bit with the with the front feel i looked like diving into the or getting into the turn on the brakes i just i didn't feel connected with the front tire and and like there was a disconnect between me the tire and the track and yeah and uh it was something on this bike i haven't had that feeling before throughout the winter when we tested and and uh at the first round i just i never had that feeling and it just it wasn't it wasn't great yesterday and it just it took some time to try to figure out what that was and it was a combination of a lot of stuff that the team changed but it definitely got the bike a lot better so they really you really felt a big difference when they finally when they finally got it you really had a lot more front feel after that oh yeah yeah for sure that from the first lap in the race were a big step with the bike that's fantastic it's great to be able to figure out a problem with that team right like sometimes a lot of the time you have a problem you just have to ride around it and do your best right you can't always figure it out so yeah that i mean that that that's one thing that's great about this team is there's so much knowledge between the crew that that it's sometimes it takes a little bit to figure out the solution but they usually find it was there are you having any chatter issues like some people are talking about is on the surface or we are a little bit but i think that's just a thing with american tracks i think it's just that because we because these tracks get used a lot if it's cars or bikes track days and stuff and so i think it just kind of degrades the surface a little bit so i i think this is a common thing no matter what track we go just kind of how it is yeah i have to deal with it yeah yeah i think the ridge is like that too there's some chattery bits the ridge yes yeah yeah that's that's my local i'll be there yeah at the end of the end of june yeah so when was the last time you raced here if it was last year forgive me i didn't follow the series very closely last year so i'm kind of back into it this year so were you were you here racing last year i was so i i stepped away from road racing for four or five years almost so yeah so uh i raced here in 2019 uh and then i i didn't come back here until 2020.

24. so the last two years i raced here oh that's good that's good yeah yeah hasn't been hasn't been five years yeah yeah it's been uh the last two years here has been a little brutal to me so it feels good to get a third today dude that was pretty awesome yeah that was that was great thank you see you like i could tell there was a change because i was here on friday watching looking at the times like oh jd something something changed yeah so congratulations thank you now it feels good it feels good yeah well i don't want to take up too much of your time i really appreciate you no problem a few minutes so no worries hopefully i'll see you again in some of the other rounds and good luck for the rest of the year awesome thank you very much great great to watch very very entertaining thank you thank you awesome great work thank you very much appreciate it thank you bye bye Thank you.