MotoAmerica Elkhart Lake - Big Old Road America

Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 843 for the 4th of June, 2026. Big old road America. Thanks to all the show supporters. If you've been listening, please consider supporting the show.

Visit the website at motopodcast.com for details. Any amount is greatly appreciated. Also, please check out Jim and Rich covering MotoGP and also Danny and Carl covering World Superbike and British Superbike, as well as a special upcoming TT show. On this show, we will be covering the MotoAmerica races at Road America from last weekend. I'm Jake Rohrer in Seattle, new to the show this year, covering MotoAmerica.

And with me today again is our longtime correspondent, Scott Bolton on the East Coast. Good morning, Scott. How's it going? Doing good, Jake. Morning to you.

Early AM out there on the left coast, I know, but that's a dedication for you. Yeah. Got to figure out this three-hour difference and get it done, right? So here we are. Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, we didn't get to go to Elkhart Lake. Have you ever been there, Scott? I've never been. I have not.

It's one that I'd definitely like to get to. From my point of view, never being there, but watching it for years on the television, to me, it looks like the closest track here in the States that we have to be close to a true European-style road circuit. And of course, they used to run World Superbike there back in the, I guess, in the early 80s. Yeah. So it's a great experience.

It's a great experience. It's a great 70s and 80s. 80s and 90s, probably, right? 80s and 90s. Yeah.

Would have been 80s and 90s. I mean, I think the track's been there since the 50s. Yep. It was built in the 50s. But yeah, beautiful facilities, surroundings, just that area of Wisconsin.

Just a lovely place to stick a big old racetrack in the middle of. Exactly. Yeah. So high speed. It is a big old racetrack.

Just over four miles. That is a big track. Yeah. And it's just a shame. There's just a few areas of the track that, you know, where they can't really make changes to what would be deemed suitable for a, you know, meadow GP.

They can't make changes or it's just prohibitively expensive to. I think it's just, you know, they've pretty much changed from what I can gather, you know, everything they can to a degree that I guess, to make additional changes would, you know, would it really be worth it for them? Right. I'm not sure the ins and outs of why it came or couldn't be done, but you would think if it could have been, it would have been, but yeah, still a great facility for domestic series. Of course, you know, Indy cars race there and sports cars and, you know, it gets a lot of use throughout the year.

It's just, even seeing world super bike go back there would be great in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's an interesting track. It definitely has some elevation and, um, some interesting features, definitely a drafting track.

And I, I don't know how I feel about all the drafting. I, part of me thinks it's interesting. And part of me finds it a little bit tiresome because it becomes such a big factor in a lot of the races or maybe even all of the races. It just seems to be kind of a game kind of like Daytona. Um, what do you think about that, Scott?

Do you find it interesting or. Like me, as I get a little, I don't know, I get a little tired of it. No, I'm okay with it. I mean, it's just the nature of a, of a, any facility like that in any circuit where you have the long straightaways, it does provide for some good late breaking moves. You know, if you, if you're drafted out to about a three wide, uh, yeah.

Situation going into the corners, you know, one of the corners at the end of one of those long straights. It's pretty interesting. Yeah. I guess, I guess what kind of, what gets to me a little bit is that somebody has to lead the race and that person in a lot of cases finds themselves at a bit of a disadvantage if they're leading, you know, towards the end of the race to on the last lap, especially you sort of don't want to be leading. You want to be setting yourself up for a drop, just like, you know, a Daytona, it's the same kind of thing.

So I guess that's what I find strange about it. It's like, who's going to lead? Somebody has to lead i don't want to do it i'm gonna let you lead but then if you don't want to lead it it just gets kind of strange i think it causes a strange dynamic but but yes there were some very entertaining three wide events and a few of the races that were fun to watch yeah i've never really understood the track very well i tried to draw my own map and make some notes to actually understand it a little bit better it's got a lot of different features which is cool as we'll talk about in the super back race it does uh favor the backs that can produce the raw top yeah you know we talked about that that was that was the expectation but it didn't seem to fully realize that i it seemed to not quite work out that way i mean the ducatis certainly looked good but the amahas were not they weren't as slow as maybe some people expected them to be well the attack amahas weren't exactly the attack amahas strack was a different story yeah so we'll we'll we'll unpack some of that we will super back yeah there was a super sport quote-unquote balancing update for this event we talked about this before we started recording i tried to find specific information describing the update and failed to find anything useful all the notes i have are quotes from josh heron in the press conferences and their race commentators talking about it qualitatively found it i was kind of surprised that i wasn't able to find it officially described but you know qualitatively ducati was penalized not penalized ducati's lost a little bit off the top end is what everybody was saying whatever that means i don't know if it's throttle opening if it's a i don't think it's a max rpm because that wasn't really mentioned and then suzuki apparently was given a little bit on the bottom whatever that means maybe again fuel throttle opening at four rpms i don't know yeah i think most of that's done through the electronics but oh it's all it's it's all electronics but they're running you know they're running a a spec ecu and i don't really understand the details but i think some of the mapping is locked down and they're not allowed to change it and i don't know what that entails if it's i've heard it's done through the because it's all ride by wire so you can control with the ecu you can control how far open the butterflies are at any given rpm so i think it's something to do with that but i'm not sure josh was definitely complaining a little bit about that in the press conferences and uh kayla was also she wasn't really complaining but they asked her about it and she she did make some i thought she made some good points that just because the ducatis are winning you don't necessarily get to conclude that it's the bike because she very eloquently made the point that all the top riders are on ducatis well maybe aside from ty scott on the suzuki but in any case it was interesting josh also mentioned tire pressure which i didn't realize was regulated and he said something about having to add six psi to the rear tire pressure for this event and again this is all this is sort of conjecture so i don't know if it's correct but that is a lot of extra pressure in a rear tire on a race bike when you're typically starting maybe around 20 psi or even less sometimes depending on the track and so i don't know if you heard anything about that scott but i i six psi was a big number to me yeah i didn't uh i didn't catch anything on that jake so i'm not sure what it was only mentioned and he mentioned it in one of the one of the press conferences after one of the super sport races and it stuck out to me he was saying that he felt like you know it was it was something to do with safety you know like we always hear in moto gp with the tire pressure stuff and he definitely felt like he was sliding around more than he would have been which makes perfect sense maybe we can get tony romo on the show one time sometimes yeah and uh yeah honestly some of these things explained for us because i mean i honestly think that would be a great that's a great idea because the the whole tire pressure thing to me has been frustrating and kind of confusing and i would love i would love to hear some official explanations of it and maybe it would maybe it would help us understand a little bit better what's behind it i don't know i don't think that's completely out of the question we'll see that would be that would be that would be an interesting thing to to try to make happen the announcers were claiming and also moto america on their website was claiming that the attendance records for road america broke whatever record they're claiming is the benchmark they were saying it was there was more people than last year and a new attendance record the guys on the wearer forms that you know they they back it up man that place was packed and oh good it's like like yeah so okay i've seen in here this you know so oh that's good i don't think they're in embellishing the story too much yeah that that's the word i was looking for yeah yeah well i i hope that's the case because it just starts to feel a little performative when they keep talking about how many people are there and shall we get into the racing or is there do we want to do anything else we want to discuss sometimes i feel like there's not enough sort of news between the races about the different riders sort of like in contrast to motor gp where there's always all this chatter about you know the silly season and whatever's going on with mark i want some more news to discuss i want a couple a couple sort of side stories that we can talk about but they're maybe i just need to be on social media more but i just can't do it yeah there's usually a thread for each race on the wearer forums i mean there's a bunch of like any internet forum there's a bunch of crap on there you don't want to waste your time on but there's some inserted in some of these threads like me or somebody will create a thread for a particular race weekend week and then as that race weekend goes on and then even beyond the after it for a few weeks generally people are constantly on there and they're not commenting and there's some and there's you know like hank vosberg's dad he's on there and then some of the guys that are on there are actually crew members for like orange cat or you know different teams and so you between some of the you know keyboard cowboy bs you get some good insight and comment but you gotta wait it's interspersed throughout the thread it's not like every post is a compelling and of course informative but there are there's you will find and then you know as far as just the news you can search it out you can find stuff between the races but you're not going to be seeing stuff like meta gp where it's popping up in feeds you know x or instagram or well it's kind of cool that the we're the we're a forum remains a vibrant forum i mean forums were were the thing like in the 2000s and when i was racing and i spent time on them and then i've i guess i've maybe wrongly assumed that the whole forum ecosystem has kind of died down and i've been able to ride off and been replaced by social media but maybe that's not necessarily true at least yeah i mean there's definitely a fewer of them out there that are relevant anymore but yeah there's still a few that you know like the where forms yeah adv right adv rider yeah i'd be rider or whatever so yeah but yeah it's the the heyday of the forums is internet forums yeah that's that's that's kind of past isn't a ton of up there it's just that that beautiful clean world of very few algorithms and very few people that are out there that are out there that are out there that are you recommendations and feeds you know it's just you get to decide where you go and what you look at and it's not anticipating what you want to see you know that's i feel strongly about that i cannot stand even youtube it's like can i just get to the history of the videos and play them in the order i want to know it's gonna just sit there and interrupt you and so it's so irritating what's the latest what's popular that's all i care about just show me what's popular you know it's like what am i just i'm just just treating us like the cattle that we are now to them so all right okay let's yeah yeah feel like a number seeker says yeah yeah like a number yeah well it's i'm not a number damn it i'm a man yeah and if it's you know more recently quote if if you're not paying for it you are the product you know sure all right well we'll get into the get into the super sport activities here i don't have a lot of notes on qualifying but ty scott dominated he got into the 215s i think for the first time ever i believe that's true josh harron was a couple of tenths behind him with darren bender in third and kayla in fourth about six tenths behind ty scott and then josh hayes pretty pretty solid chunk of time behind about 1.4 seconds out but he was he was in fifth on set middle of the second row and then maximillian gerardo in sixth and torn collins dominic doyle demario and blake davis in tenth yeah just looking at the qualifying rundown it looks like the uh that track definitely suited some of the yamahas yeah qualities better than vs rounds you had after the scott on the suzuki and then the the three ducatis you had from fifth hayes down to dominic doyle in eighth so all yamahas yeah yeah and then demario on a ducati and then beyond him you had four more yamahas yep no that's that's a good point i don't think the yamahas were affected by this latest balancing they were only mentioned ducati and suzuki so but again i don't know i can't find the official no i don't i don't think i don't think there were any changes uh since uh road atlanta for the yeah interesting yeah i mean looking at this maybe you can make the argument that hey you know suzuki still needs a little more because there's one suzuki you know ty scott on pole but then there isn't as suzuki until you get down to aiden sneed in p14 so yeah and actually in q uh or the the second uh track session on fridays yeah snee aiden sneed on that uh 3d motorsport suzuki he was like fourth the day one the time i think they call it a timed session but yeah besides him um most of the other guys were suzuki's were a little farther down outside the top yeah and i was i was paying a little more attention to avery dreyer just because of the unfortunate incident with his sister ella at barber he's still out there ripping so that's a good sign so on saturday race one these these races are only 11 laps but the tracks are damn big kayla got a great start she led the first lap with heron and bender close behind having their own little battle and my notes are incomplete i meant to go back and i don't have any notes between the start and lap 10 for some reason so a bunch of things happened and then by lap 10 apologies this is where my notes start ty scott josh and darren are now leading the race and they enter turn one at the end of the long front straight three wide this is one of these three wide late braking moments pretty exciting ty was all the way on the outside on the left side of the track and he left it kind of late instead of sort of dropping back and seating his position he turns in way too late and pretty wide loses the front and just goes skittering off into that long gravel runoff area what was impressive to me is he was up and back on that bike in no time and immediately got the thing going rejoined the race in 12th position and i have here noted that he only lost 32 seconds which if you think about that you're crashing it i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know 80 90 miles an hour sliding off into the gravel for a while getting up getting the bike back up checking the bike and getting back into the race in 32 seconds that's that's pretty incredible to me so this allowed kayla to go by him and gain the last podium position on the next and final lap ahead of kayla josh now runs wide into turn one somewhat similarly to what ty had done on the previous lap but he stayed up he didn't crash he stayed up he kept it on the there's a lot of concrete runoff there so he kept it up but he did lose some time to bender who was leading subsequent to that bender does his fastest lap on the final lap of the race which was a 216.3 and wins the race ahead of josh by a couple of seconds with kayla pretty close behind josh and p3 maximilio gerardo on the r9 a little ways back and then josh hayes putting in a pretty solid fifth place result dominic noel behind him on another yamaha in six demario seventh here i he's kind of hanging out in this sort of back of the front group i think i think he's going to improve as the season goes on torren collins in eighth blake davis on the track yamaha in ninth and alexander enriquez on another yamaha in tenth and then brandon kettleson who he interviewed at the beginning of the season in 11th on the on a bpr r9 alongside josh hayes scott came in 12th exactly 32.6 seconds behind the leader so he definitely was setting himself up to win or come in very close to winning you know according to my math it's kind of interesting yeah just a few thoughts on that uh race one for the super sport uh number one thing that comes to mind is it's a shame that ty scott did crash out because at the start of the race you know it was bender heron scott and kayla yep kayla was she i think she led a little bit in the first few laps but then she yielded the top position and just kind of seemed to be struggling just a bit to hang on to that top group uh scott and heron and bender were the only ones that were able to get down into the 216s now yep actually uh scott's best lap was a little quicker than heron's as far as fastest lap of the season so i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think the race bender got that but they were all you know within about four or five tenths of each other so really really close yeah no i i had the same impression kayla did not look quite as racy as she has this season i think she said that this isn't her favorite track maybe in one of the press conferences she did put some good moves on though i gotta say i've got some other notes for race two where she definitely she definitely was still what what i like seeing is quite a happy to battle with these guys now and she isn't doesn't seem to be intimidated by them which you know it shouldn't even be a question but it's still it's still kind of an impression and it'll go away soon i promise but she's she's right there she's not yielding easily she's definitely relevant uh as far as no i just feel bad sort of commenting on the fact that she's battling of like of course she is she's she's in the top four racers in this class but it's just this this female thing is still it's still affecting the way i view it in her honor i will attempt to stop doing that because i know she's sick of talking about it but yeah she uh she definitely was a little bit off the pace not a lot but a little bit so that's worth mentioning and maybe the six psi thing if that's true that would really hurt her because she's really light right she's by far the lightest rider at least within that top group so this is the thing i would love to know more about the tire pressure rule because it's the sum of you know the tire pressure should be proportionate to the complete the total weight of the rider and the bike not just the bike and to just apply a blanket rule like that especially if you're raising the pressure if it and again i don't know i don't know what the actual details are i just heard josh mention it so i really can't make any conclusions but forcing kayla if in fact kayla had to raise her rear tire pressure six psi i'd be willing to bet that that had a major even more of an effect on her because of her her smaller weight so that's just a theory i have no no facts to back it up but uh it could have been a factor all right so we'll move on to race two on sunday which i have complete notes for in this race tyler got a better start and he led harren and kayla at the beginning of the race i have noted here that there was a pretty big crash in the carousel turn eight it did not cause a red flag and they got it sorted out but i meant to go back and find out who that was and how they're doing and i didn't maybe you've got notes on that scott well it was maxi gerardo on the altus motorsports yamaha and it was a big uh get off uh but yeah he got up fortunately and and walked away from it seemingly not he was faster at race weekend than maybe he has been earlier this season is that true or maybe it's just you know he was fourth in race one i don't remember him being in the top group earlier this season so there was uh you know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't off the last couple of years he's showed a lot of speed at certain places at certain times not a consistent front runner but obviously yeah that was actually in the carousel and they come out at the end of that and basically and it's very high speed yeah very high speed sweeping corner yeah it goes on it's like 180 degree corner yeah so he looked like he tucked the front coming right before they start to come out onto that little straight between 10 and 11 right yeah he he yeah you know you're you're right i yeah the bike went tumbling good to see him get up and walk away from that one yeah absolutely so on the next lap on lap two hayes finds his way up to the front for a little while with ty dropping back into p4 this was another classic drafting situation where you know the rider leading the race has a few people behind him and just in a drafting situation suddenly goes from p1 to p4 in the space of a few seconds and it's just kind of the just kind of the deal with drafting and sort of what kind of bothers me about a little bit but anyway he's led for a little bit and that was that was cool to see you know he's he's he was the grand marshal this weekend apparently and he was he was commenting that it was a little strange he found it a little strange that they had made him the grand marshal while he was actually still racing he wasn't sure how he could perform those duties effectively as a racer but i think he was you know it's all sort of in good fun so by lap three the next lap bender bender's now leading ahead of heron with hayes now down in p3 still still holding pretty well and a few laps later bender and heron start having just this constant battle where they're just continuously trading the lead and i think some of it was just them not necessarily racing each other but using the draft and using each other to effectively increase their collective speed sort of like a mini peloton almost i think that's what i think a few riders working together in the draft can actually go faster at least on those sections of the track because they're sharing some of the drag so i kind of think maybe they were doing that it wasn't necessarily a racing effort it was more of a actually a joint effort maybe i'm imagining it but i'm pretty sure you can actually gain time that way so heron set a new lap record at that point of a 216.2 a new race lap record and then on the very next lap heron crashed he lost the front basically in the same place as maximilio gerardo exiting the long carousel turn this now allowed kayla to uh come up behind only a couple of tenths behind ty scott and p2 with hayes behind her uh in p4 a couple of laps later kayla passes ty for p2 in a pretty amazing pass coming into the turn 10 chicane she just stuck it up the inside of him on a super tight line like so tight that it didn't look like she was going to be able to hold the apex but she held it that was cool to cool to watch on lap 10 following that i think ty had gotten by kayla at some point and then and kayla was following him he had a little moment and he ran wide and let kayla and josh both by for the second and third podium positions and by the final lap ty closes back in to kayla and josh the time the last lap of the race and the last lap of the race and the last lap of the race and the last lap of the race well not really behind darren darren was ahead by like eight seconds winning by a country mile and he sat another lap record of a 216 flat so that was pretty impressive darren is he's showing his chops you know showing up with these tracks for the first time or in some cases at least the first time on a race machine i think he's been trying to get around and do a track day here and there to learn some of the tracks but i think it's safe to say that he's done a pretty good job most most of the time he hasn't hasn't been there on his race bike you know i saw an interview with him where he was asked about learning the tracks and how he seemed to be learning them so quickly and his comments were basically that well i've raced on so many different circuits throughout my career there's similarities i can draw at certain parts of a new track that from another track however many i've been to that i can relate to but then he said also you know we'll do the video game familiarization just to kind of figure out you know where certain markers and things are you know and just get a kind of a visual of it that way the best i can he said then i'll go back and watch as many recent races there from there that particular circuit as i can and get a better idea on you know where the the riders you know where their braking points were and different things so it is a really impressive track and then he basically said so yeah he said usually within two or three laps of uh unloading in the first practice he said i've usually pretty well got it down by then so two or three laps that's i know that's kind of crazy yeah so i guess he's he's doing a lot of homework and like you said he's probably learned to do this homework years ago because he was kind of in the same situation some of the the classes for the younger guys you just sort of what you have to do you've got to do your homework you can't just show up blind like a pedestrian at a track day so yeah it's it's still impressive though even i mean to be to be on the pace after just a couple of laps i mean i don't think even people that have been there many times like karen i don't you know there takes a few laps just to you know sort of get warmed up if nothing else so uh you know to me it speaks for how battle-hardened he is after spending oh man so much time in the grand prix paddock you know and in moto 3 winning a race but then but anyway it goes back to moto 2 yeah and never really is a top runner in that class but just pounding out so many laps and races in that meat grinder of a class oh yeah and you know to come over here and josh harron is not slow ty scott is not slow no josh hayes caleb blake is any of these you know our top five uh back through you know at least the top six or eight it just goes to show how that experience to me i mean coming into the season i saw a lot of talk about how heron was just going to dominate him on that on that ducati uh it's probably going to be like a couple of years ago you know two or three years ago when he was on the ducati in super sport anyway um and there was a lot of speculation about bender well you know is he gonna you know just based on his finishing positions in moto 2 you know well he's he's is he going to crash a lot is he is he really going to be that fast when he gets over here and whatever and he has certainly proved right off the bat that he's plenty fast and he's in a smaller pond now where the top competition is is a little well it's just not as many well yeah i think i think it almost you can almost draw some positive conclusions on both sides it's like he's not dominating yet but he's i bet i think he's having a great time there's good competition he's racing josh really hard and really close they seem to be developing a very good hard but fair racing relationship so far this season he hasn't just shown up and completely destroyed the field so i think that gives some credit to the riders here that are you know slouches and they they can hold their own and they're fast so i think and it shows his abilities to just go to a new place and learn new tracks and win it kind of both things are going on if you know what i mean he's he's he's showing how capability is but it's also kind of showing the capability of of the riders in moto america that are also quite capable maybe maybe he'll maybe he'll start really cleaning up as the season progresses i don't know we'll see but yeah i don't i don't i don't see that happening really uh there'll be like this track certain tracks that he probably really gels with and there'll be others that'll you know he may have a little bit harder time picking up on i mean the ridge this next round coming up yeah you know that that's a pretty interesting track uh he did say yep he he did say sorry to interrupt he he did say that and i don't know if it's true but he said oh yeah this is so far you know road america this is my favorite track so far he did say that a couple of times okay so finishing up in race two you had darren undertaking the win uh 8.28 second gap over second place tyler scott kayla yakoff third uh josh hayes fourth and blake davis fifth all three of those or four of those were uh you know just uh they throw a blanket over and blake definitely probably the best turn with center blake davis on the strike uh r9 this year so hopefully that he's starting they're starting to figure things out there uh demario weighs off that pack back in uh six aiden sneed up into seventh place on his alexander enriquez uh torren collins and dom doyle ran it out the top 10 as they leave road america and get a few weeks off before heading to the ridge at the end of this month so darren bender's leading the super sport championship with 153 over heron with 119 kayla with 110 ty scott and fourth with 109 and blake davis running out the top five at seven josh hayes and in just 20 points behind well 18 i guess so yeah so filling out that top uh 10 yeah hayes at 56 dom doyle at 51 demario at 48 aiden sneed at 45 and maxi gerardo at 42 bender is uh yeah he's pulling away a little cushion there and i'll tell you it's so far bender and heron you know seem to be meshing okay but i just find it hard to believe if he keeps pushing heron and and beating him on a consistent basis as he has so far that heron's gonna well he's crashing his attitude is good well honestly that second race crash was because he was pushing so hard to try to go with bender well exactly that's what i'm saying like he's bender is pushing him it's like what was there a problem with the bike no i think the problem was in josh's head for sorry josh if you're listening i love you brother but uh that's that's always been an issue for heron is what's between the ears uh well he's he's he's yeah i mean he's no different to so many other racers that way but it's a mental game but but maybe he what you're saying is he he gets mad can't can't accept that maybe bender is going to beat him and so he's sort of a winner crash guy like what did they say about max biagi and faster you know sheer bloody mindedness he'll he'll he's either going to win or crash trying to win those are the two options yeah you know hopefully uh as the year goes on that that uh that battle between those two and that relationship won't turn it looks yeah i i think there's a lot of respect there and i mean darren seems like a very chill dude at least whenever he's being interviewed he's he's not excitable he's very very measured and calm and collected so yeah yeah i don't see a problem arising from his side of the pit but uh just just watching josh for the rest of his life yep many years now yeah he might about 15 yeah yeah he's sometimes his mentality has been his biggest obstacle so he's got better as he's got older right he's got wife and kids and but uh still i don't know we'll see well that does it for super sport so we will move on super bike it was sort of a repeat on friday it was kind of a repeat of barber where poor old ben on the warhorse ducati alongside cameron bobier had another big crash in practice and a fast one yeah coming coming down uh the straight away into turn five that's uh i've seen reports that apparently something might have came off jason uribe's bmw yeah following and i've heard that it locked the front wheel oh shit but i've also heard reports of the axle the front axle actually coming off his bike that it landed basically beside where he landed i don't know i never got a clear cut but there was a mechanical failure of some part that okay was in the braking process but not a had not scrubbed off a lot of speed oh man that front end just went on him and he slid and the bike impacted the the barrier and then bounced off and it was destroyed a nice whack yeah so he unfortunately was uh not seriously injured but concussed and i think he was concussed at barber too so that's a bit concerning it is it is i feel that's some bad luck there so yeah he's uh he's having a rough start of it so far unfortunately uh yeah and yeah and we'll get to it but warhorse ducati in general is having a bit of a rough a rough season this year yeah i feel bad for ben that's just that's tough you know that's the kind of things happen consecutively it can really can really start to get in your head literally and just make you question what the hell you're doing out there hopefully this is the last of it for him and he can he can get back to doing some real racing and having a having a good weekend so for sure that's the case um bobier put in a 209 5 for pole position and pj jacobson about four tenths behind the middle of the second row and our friend jd beach put it on the front row and p3 with a 210 one on the yamaha and on row two we had sdk on the bmw orange cat racing just a smidge behind jd and then hayden gillum on the honda middle of the second row and p5 the 210.4 and richie escalante p6 on the suzuki with a 210.5 pretty close here and then scultz leading the third row on the yamaha with a 210.6 bobby fong next to him with a 211.3 so there's a bit of a gap there and then jason uribe and p9 on the other bmw and then brandon posh on the other m4x star suzuki at 211.8 so i think this new qualifying format proved uh pivotal in this being at this track where the lap times are longer i agree and because sdk in the free practice time practice on friday was at a 2099 and then of course the few laps that he had on in the qualifying session was a couple of tenths off kept him off the front row but uh as we'll see he still had this new sort of fim style 15 minute qualifying session is it's really fun for the fans but i think it i've been saying this for a few years it's got to be just horrible for the racers it's such a such a tiny amount of time to get out there especially a track like this too where the draft is a big deal and it's such a big track i it's almost like they need to make some adjustments based on the track size it seems a bit a bit unfair really to force everyone into that tiny tiny period of time where they're sharing the track with all the other guys and that's difficult i really didn't really like the reflect the overall pace of each rider yeah and you know as time goes on and they get more adjusted to what they've got to work with even at the bigger tracks uh you know they'll maybe figure out strategies yeah yeah for ways to approach it but yeah right now it's as we've seen so far it's it's had uh some effects uh it's several rounds so far that uh the overall shift towards this type has been driven by viewership and marketing not by the racing you remember the old days where it's a 45 minute qualifying session you know go out there and do whatever you need to do and they're just trying to get more eyeballs on the screens and it is more exciting to watch like q1 and q2 and moto gp are super fun to watch now i always get it it's it's exciting it's fun but i think it's it's more of a challenge for the racing um you know just just one pre-race note uh coming into this weekend on the uh we got a few a few of those yes on the aftercare shabby racing jones unfortunately uh alex dumas is out of that seat cam bobby's younger brother ezra bobby is back in the series taking his place on that bike you know i don't know what the ins and outs were there but uh after my interview and talking with uh alex back at road atlanta i'm i'm afraid that maybe at the point where he's like okay i'm i'm done with this and that's a shame because even though he he didn't have super results it was such a short time for him to be able to do that and that he had on that bike and and it's just a shame to see a talent like what he has displayed that shown that he has in the past walk away from racing and maybe that won't be the case but uh just based on his comments uh if he wouldn't have got that ride starting out the year sounded like he was about ready to walk at that point from the sport and we'll see uh maybe he'll turn up somewhere else but uh and good on ezra bobby i mean he's he's been in the series before in different classes so hopefully he'll be able to have some good results as the year goes on good for him that he's found a place uh hopefully for the rest of the year on the on that machine but i just hated to see alex move on yeah was your impression that alex made the decision that he didn't want to continue no i don't i don't think that would have been the case oh okay so you think you think you think they you think the team let him go that would be my guess okay yeah that's too bad yeah because he did sort of express that he was thinking about retiring from racing in canada and then this opportunity presented itself and it reinvigorated him and he came down yeah so that's too bad i interesting yeah where was was ezra racing in some other series and he raced it seems like one of the orange cat super stock bikes okay a couple of years ago interesting but he had been doing some i think some club racing out on the west coast he must have been he must have been but no he had not been in the he was not in the series last year so yeah good to see ezra back uh well it's too bad about alex we'll have to have to it was a nice interview that you got with him at at road atlanta it would be interesting to maybe find out what happened there i've got a little inside connection with one of the guys on their team that maybe i can reach out to and just see if they can give me any just info on to what is might have went what might have went down there but anyway best of luck alex moving on and i'll see you next time and whatever uh exactly chapter of racing or life in general brings forth yeah wish him the best a couple other pre-race notes ashton yates was back this weekend on the jones honda so that was that's good to see um he was he was in the pits you'd see him around he was definitely on on a good recovery path um at barber he was walking around i think he had a knee brace on he was there hanging out um so he the other note is the infamous larry pegram found himself back in the paddock this weekend on another honda that was kind of fun he was a personality that a lot of us remember the worm yep he's uh another kind of like josh hayes another angel yeah ageless wonder uh he might even be older than josh yeah i don't know but he uh you know he shows up he showed up last the last couple of years at mid ohio and super sport and running inside the top 10 and that very competitive class so yeah larry's of course doing some uh emsa racing with his daughter i think it's the michelin pilot challenge series nice but yeah it's good to see uh good to see the worm back out there yep he has less hair now than he used to that's all i know all right so we'll get into the get into the races race one 12 laps on saturday pj got a really good start with jd and sdk close behind by lap two richie escalante crashed out i neglected to know exactly where i don't think it was a big scary crash cameron bobier finds himself up in p2 and i just was noting that sdk just looked like he was just in a barca lounger he looked really stable really comfortable didn't look like he was having to try very hard to keep up with everybody the ducati still look twitchy really fast on the straights but man they still look unstable and i think most more specifically the new ducatis it's worth repeating and reiterating that cameron bobier and pj jacobson are on the newest ducati v4 and you can tell because the older ducati that cam p is on the wrench motorcycles ducati the white bike that is an older model and you can tell by the swing arms so the newest bike has a more traditional swing arm whereas the older bike has a single-sided swing arm like you see so many ducatis over the years have had that's just to note i i would from a mechanical point of view i would expect the the standard double-sided swing arm to be more to be stiffer and more stable but for whatever reason that that newest v4r has it's still looking unsettled which is unfortunate because i think maybe it's it's holding certain people like bobier back a little bit the next lab sdk leads breakaway group of five including pj bobier cam peterson and bobby fong and at this point it looks like jd is having some issues of some kind he's he got a great start but then he dropped back a little bit don't know exactly why but it was a brief period where he lost a little bit of pace but he did recover by lap five pj had really long fast wiggle on one of the straights drops back he had this long sustained ducati wiggle it was on that uh stretch that fast basically the the turn four they call it but it's that right fast he's the second right the second straight and he and that that was a that was very noticeable he dropped back i think he got spooked and he dropped back a little bit so bobby is now leading sdk and you know at this point jd recovered a little bit from whatever was causing him some kind of a minor issue a couple of laps earlier jd recovers by lap five the announcers were noting that the pace was sort of in general a little slow like a second or two down on what they'd seen in previous years i don't know it was a little cooler i don't know if they were a little outside it was only sort of in the 60s so maybe maybe it was a little cool maybe the track was a little cool by lap seven cam peterson passes sdk uh for p2 with bobby a still leading and starting to pull away he did at this point put in a 209 lap which i believe was the fastest lap of the race but unfortunately immediately following that fast lap he crashed at the chicane at turn 10 kind of it's a left right and i think he crashed in the first it wasn't a fast crash but something was awkward about it and he once he got back up he was just kind of standing there kind of writhing in pain and kind of holding one of his hands and he looked really it was like okay something's wrong there's something something bad happened here couldn't tell what it was later it was noted that he he hurt one of his shoulders i don't have more detail than that but he separated he's separated and i don't know which one yeah this took the second of the two warhorse ducatis out of the running for the weekend pretty rough going for them this season hasn't uh hasn't gone to plan at all at this point the race was red flagged was it red flagged because of cameron's crash or was there another it was okay okay that's what i thought but i for whatever reason they they could not get his bike out of the way quick enough and it was pretty much right on the side of the track and they just decided to red flag it which i meant to note earlier in general way fewer red flags this weekend previous few rounds which i was happy to see maybe just due to the nature of the track to some extent just being much bigger but not very many restarts at all aside from this one we're about to report on but in general this uh race weekend was far less plagued by red flags than what we've seen previously so the restart was only five laps at the start fong got out of the gates quickest leading sdk and cam peterson scultz he's struggling just doesn't have the pace this weekend i what's going on because the attack yamahas were right there do you have any information there to so i was watching the moto the moto america live feed on friday during the practice sessions and uh he was uh he was having some intense discussions with his crew and you could overhear a little of what he was saying and basically it sounded like he just could not get the rear rear end of the bike to hook up that he that it would step out and then instead of hooking back up like in a corner and step out just a bit but instead of hooking back up it would just go farther after that and felt like he was about to you know high side or something and said it and it didn't sound like it was a tire issue it sounded like it was something with the suspension and also you know i've heard where uh attack where stamboli this is the round he puts the most into as far as engine work to try to get enough top end to hang with the bmws and the ducatis on the long straights at road america and of course as we reported on a previous episode that whereas track started the season as basically almost like a satellite team for attack that that relationship soured and i'm pretty sure i'd you know i've heard where attack where stamboli this is the round he puts the most into as far as engine work to try to get enough top end to hang with the bmws and the ducatis on the long straights anthony i'll see dave racing that was uh doing the engines for for uh strack and so you know it just seemed like he didn't he didn't have the pace to on the straightaways like the attack yamaha's did that they were able to stay with the bmw and ducati matthew was just lagging behind for yeah whether it was a combination of that and the suspension handling issues or more of one than the other but definitely didn't seem to have the pace to be able to hang with them down the long straights there that had occurred to me you reporting on that relationship with attack ending and that's it's an interesting little detail getting back to the race uh by lap three which is you know halfway through the restart sdk is leading with cam peterson close behind who then passed him for the lead in turn five it's after the sort of back straight kink turn four and there's a downhill pretty tracks pretty wide and a lot of a lot of passing happens there tiger room crashes out i don't know where it wasn't fast he was up and okay but he did crash out on the last lap a couple of laps later sdk closes the closes the gap back up to cam peterson at the chicane and then passes him in canada but sdk does not yield and they stay side by side pretty much all the way to the finish through turn 13 and 14 and that was that was probably the most entertaining part of the race and then the last lap he was up and okay but he did crash out on the last lap a couple of laps later sdk closes the closes the gap back up to cam peterson at the race and cam p came out on top by a very small margin and i just noted this was this was great racing they they put on a good show for us there at the very end it was great for cam p he he was he was ecstatic but yeah also peterson uh had a poor qualifying effort he did on the grid so he definitely carved up through the field and yeah coming off that last corner like i said we got that uphill run to the finish line and a good drive and a good run and a good run and a good drive off that final corner is crucial yep and uh he was able to uh lead going up the hill and hold off the draft pass of sdk and fong behind him so yeah that was a impressive run to the line for uh cam p yeah it's true uh yeah so sdk was only six hundredths of a second behind cam and then bobby fong was just a couple of tenths behind sdk and so those three finished very close to one another with pj about a set just just under a second back coming in p4 jd beach in fifth and then you know skolts was in p6 which would have been okay if we hadn't been graced with his domination for the previous part of this season um definitely a change in form aiden gillum seventh on the honda and then jason uribe on the other orange cat bmw and p8 with andrew lee coming in p9 which that's the superbike cup series i believe which he's leading that was a close finish between lee and campbell and tenth for that yeah yeah superbike cup top spot they were uh less than a they were a tenth yeah less than a tenth apart they're very close and then ashton yates coming in and p11 you know a little ways back but he's he's recovering it's good to see actually it was short but it was pretty entertaining race to watch and then i guess clary had an unfortunate off but i don't think he hurt himself he did he did come back for race two and then he came back for race two and then he came back for race two on sunday right and max flinders also crashed out yeah he didn't start him he didn't start on sunday no i don't know if he was back not being able to repair hopefully max wasn't injured uh to where he couldn't start on sunday but for whatever reason he was the no start on sunday so speaking of sunday we'll move on to race two which was 12 laps brobie is out due to his crash on saturday pj gets a great start leading jd sdk fong and scultz by lap two jd gets into the lead cameron peterson as you noted had a poor qualifying session but he's already by lap two he's already reached the lead group from p14 so man campy had pace and he was easily getting through the field by lap three pj and sdk settle into p1 and p2 with jd fong cameron peterson and scultz close behind by lap five scultz pulls off with some kind of a mechanical issue it looked like he lost his engine there was there was a lot of smoke so his his weekend got even worse sdk was able to pass pj for the lead and this pack of five at the front just stays really tight for several laps um by lap nine pj is now stalking sdk with jd a little bit behind for a brief while but by the last lap sdk is still leading and he's able to pull just a small gap ahead of pj to win the race fong puts a hard move onto his teammate jd into turn five the third podium position and holds that across the finish so the final final finishing order is sdk winning on the bmw with pj about three tenths behind on the ducati with bobby fong and jd in third and fourth and campy getting a fifth spot on the wrench with hayden gillum in sixth and ritchie escalante two thousandths of a second behind hayden gillum for seventh i'd love to see that is that is what they call a photo finish yeah i think gillum might have made that a draft pass i mean yeah but i mean he it must have been a tire width yeah just just barely nipped him that's that's cool to see and then jason uribe in eighth and brandon posh and ninth and it's just going to say actually that next uh battle for behind you uribe he was kind of by himself but then you had posh andrew lee and ashton yates that were within two tenths so it's a three-way battle for that final uh top 10 spot that was a yeah three-way for wolfer ninth actually and uh yeah and then a little and then quite a ways back got danilo lewis and larry finishing in p13 and then carl solitz and ezra bobbier in 15th and that was another good race yeah so let's take a quick peek at the points they leave road america and uh with the ridge on the horizons the next round so sdk did take the points lead by one point over uh matthew scultz 106 to 105 with fong bringing up the third spot at 80 uh his teammate jd beach fourth was 73 and then cam peterson up to fifth in the points with 70 richie escalante sixth cam bobbier drops to seventh with his uh unfortunate uh injury in race one brandon posh andrew lee and pj jacobson round out the top 10 and of course andrew lee is actually doing the super bike cup so i guess the way that would be considered would be maybe that gillum is actually it's pj and then gillum in 10 well andrew lee's having a good season yeah he's he's he's doing uh doing good on that uh real still honda super stock machine super bike cup points uh yeah he's got 145 over carl sulti's 82 points in second so he's kind of running away with that looks promising yeah when you're finishing there in the top 10 on in that class that's uh it's impressive well sultz scultz and uh stracks obviously glad to have road america and their uri amera pretty miserable weekend for them uh i mean you know he did okay at least uh salvage some points and then he's got 145 over carl sulti's 82 points in second so he's kind of on saturday but so that dnf sunday was a big blow to him yeah the big the the nice healthy uh lead he had in the points when is gone and uh so it'll be interesting when they get to the ridge and see how they rebound maybe bobby a will be back for the ridge i don't know i hope so hopefully that'll be enough time but between road america weeks off they have before the ridge for him to uh get back in riding condition well i can't i can't help but think back to story about them parting ways with attack on the engine front and now suddenly scultz having clearly having an engine problem in this race it's hard to not connect those two things hopefully it's just an anomaly and he doesn't have any more issues like that those are hard to accept a mechanical failure is causing a dnf doesn't happen that much these days the machines are pretty reliable when it when it does happen it's very unfortunate there's several half-speed they have at road america it's gonna stress that top end oh for sure yeah that's a little more so unfortunately it popped uh on sunday but uh hopefully moving forward that won't be an issue for him i think we'll move on to the twins cup which produced some good racing as usual also you're probably familiar with this guy jody berry showed up uh racing in honor of ray hoffman who had also raced in the series and had sponsored jody's racing i briefly read a tiny bit of this story maybe you're more familiar with it yeah ray hoffman was a a privateer uh competitor most recently the twins cup class uh very well-liked presence in the paddock and unfortunately ray passed away i believe it was sometime last year so yeah they came out and uh hadn't seen jody this year he's he's been with the series in previous years and junior cup and i think in twins cup as well and had a had some success and showed showed a good hadn't been able to make it out but they made it to this round and i believe it might have been on ray's uh his old bike that uh but yeah jody uh came back made his presence known again so he did he came back and he was mixing it up with the guys at the front in both races so you know it pretty impressive though in the qualifying for the twins cup maddie salem he's a young racer that has came up through the the moto america mission foods mini cup uh ranks and uh he's a young racer and he's a he took the uh top spot in qualifying over hank vosberg who hank's been kind of dominating the series up till now so it's gonna be interesting to see moving forward uh how maddie salem will get into that mix for that top grouped battling out in the twins cup another he's been in for the whole season right he didn't just show up at this round like like jody did i know he was at barber i'm not sure if he was well twins cup didn't run out of time but he's been in for the race right atlanta i don't believe so yeah so i don't think he was at daytona he was at barber and he was at this round so yeah yeah impressive uh qualifying time there for sure yeah so the qualifying order was like you said maddie salem on the suzuki uh just edging out vosberg by about a tenth of a second or a little less even and then isaac woodworth p3 and bodie page kevin almito and jody berry on the second row and fourth fifth and sixth and then on the third we'll go down to the third row here with logan cunnison kyle ownsberg and sam drain uh on the back of the third row there bodie page uh back after an injury at barber so the bodie back more than back didn't seem to be suffering in the least from from the injury so it's impressive so race won seven laps on saturday i i don't have a lot of notes other than bodie had a plan and he executed he talked about it after the race he you know he just decided he was not gonna let vosberg get away and he was gonna just do everything he could to upset him and slow him down but he did more than that he just sort of stayed at the front and battled back and forth with vosberg and jody berry and then just timed everything perfectly and didn't make any mistakes and and won the race pretty decisively yeah and vosberg it was almost like he just said all right i'll let these guys take this one he didn't he almost seemed like he maybe quite as hard he came back on sunday with a little more drive but in the after race he just said yeah we'll just take some points and it's fine p3 is fine we're leading the championship i didn't need to press it too hard but it was a great race those three guys just mix it up the whole time it was great to see this jody berry racing in honor of the late ray hoffman just mixing it up at the front and you know coming in p2 that's pretty great i'm sure that made for an amazing story for him and his team matthew chapin led the the second group of well sort of three or four including maddie salem who was on pole kevin almito and isaac woodworth so they were all really close together collinsburg and p8 a little bit kind of by himself sam drain also a little by himself in ninth and then logan cunnison and chase brown in 10th and 11th having a little battle amongst themselves what did you think of this race scott yeah definitely a good mix-up between those two guys i think it was a top three uh it's good to see them giving hank a run for his money after hank's kind of dominated some rounds of course this is that this was hank valsberg's home round he there he's from wisconsin and that's where he's owned a lot of his skills is uh racing on the ice during the winter up so yeah he's uh he's in racing in front of the home crowd and uh yeah but no bode came in with the plan executed and took the win and yeah just like say just the feel-good story for uh jody berry and that righteous racing team ray hoffman being the former owner of that team notch up that strong result for him for jody and then raise me yeah i was watching going who the heck is this guy like where did he come from i i was unaware i had to read about it after but that was fun yeah i think he'd been out of the series for a couple of years actually so uh clearly he's been been training or doing something right yep moving on to race two on sunday kind of the same group at the front again bode valsberg isaac pretty much for the entire race valsberg led the final lap bode was shadowing valsberg on the last lap and in my opinion he kind of made a mistake because rather than waiting rather than getting a great drive on the final corner and just using the draft to pass him at the line he decided to pass valsberg coming into the final corner which due to the line he was on he ran a little bit wide on the exit and compromised his drive and he was able to get the last lap and he was able to get he did get by valsberg but then his drive was compromised and valsberg just immediately got back past him and won the race so i think i'm sure he learned something from from that it clearly an error i think he just got a little excited and wasn't willing to wait for the very last opportunity and thought he could get it done a little early but it didn't work out yeah valsberg stated after the race that he uh he left the door open for page going into that last corner baited him in the into it yeah and then i followed him right to the line and was able to get the one he he had that last lap draft pass planned out and executed it perfectly yeah i didn't i didn't realize that he he almost invited bode to to make that pass yeah entrapment yeah valsberg's showing a lot of showing a lot of promise some race craft there yeah i think he's going to be tough uh as far as the overall championship run for those guys uh obviously some guys that can run with him but uh but well i think he's going to be tough i think he's going to be tough i think he's going to be you know one thing i do notice jake is that sam drain on that instance in yamaha that package is obviously not on par with the appraisals in the suzuki because sam is a he's he's quite the talent and i'm pretty confident that if that bike was able to run up at the front with those you know top four or five guys that that sam would have it up there and you've only got really three yamahas in the field yeah it's it's all up really as in suzuki's yeah so i mean i know estenson is tied in you know with the yamaha as far as you know their flat track program and so i'm sure that has a lot of uh and you know implication on what back way running in the twins cup that's the r7 right the yamaha that is the r7 that's correct yeah so anyway hopefully they'll be able to sort that package out a little bit more and get sam up there a little closer to the podium as the season goes on yeah i think i think you're right sam has been he's made a splash in the series the last couple of years and it it doesn't seem consistent with his talent that he's 14 seconds behind the lead in these races sort of mid-pack really front of the mid-pack if you will yeah i hadn't necessarily noticed the lack of yamahas i guess yeah there's only two others brett donahue and drew vandal that's it there's only at least in this race gabrielle lewis didn't finish and he's the only other yamaha i see you mentioned uh brett donahue that's he's kind of an interesting story brett's an older gentleman out there racing with these younger guys but brett used to race uh pro i think it was maybe back in the 80s into the possibly early 90s so he's uh came back out to play a little bit more in the chris paris is the other the other one that everybody talks about right the other adult in the if you will yeah and i don't think uh i don't think brett's running the full season he he made a few appearances in the last year or two also but uh yeah it's good to see you got some past uh experience in back in the day if you will and come back out and uh still got the the drive and the passion but out there and racing it's a great formula this class you know i mean it the earliest memory i have of this this type of bike is sort of the sv 650 days that started a long time ago and just a kind of a great balance of power and weight and handling and not like an r6 but it's still still entertaining if you want to run down the as they stand leaving road america uh so hank vosberg is leading the class with 177 uh matthew chapin and second at 115 bodie page at 107 and third and you got sam drain and isaac woodworth rounding out the top five at 98 and 93 so sam is at least you know being consistent enough to stay inside that top five in the points kevin almedo kyle onsberg chris parish andrew way and logan cunison round out the top 10. i thought the bagger racing was pretty damn good at road america i have to say there was some some interesting competition and man i cannot get over the lean angles that they're able to sustain you really see it in the carousel they are just cranked over and some of the camera shots you could just see you could see the rubber being laid down it was pretty great camera work whoever is running the camera out and out in the carousel is doing a great job i really enjoyed seeing these things just at ungodly speed and i think it's a great thing to do and i think it's a great thing lean angles for how big they are you know but they i just can't get over how fast they are i'd love to see the dyno runs and see what kind of horsepower they're actually putting down because it's got to be i mean i'm thinking it's got to be up towards 200 horsepower these things are putting out yeah they're they're uh to do the same lap times consistently now at all the tracks they're basically going the same speed as the super sport bikes and they've got a lot more frontal area and a lot more weight hayden gillam was just a couple of seconds off the top super sport qualifying so no he's like he did a 216 one in qualifying which is two tenths off what ty scott did with 215 nine you know it's funny in our little whatsapp group amongst the moto yeah host uh jim uh our companion over up in ohio that does a lot of the moto gp pods with a rich you know there was carl one of our guys from great britain was at jello of course the bagger world cup or championship ran there and jim made the comment you can tell jim's not a big fan of the baggers obviously and uh but you know apparently the those bikes are not quite as high as a performance level as the baggers class that races with moto america apparently they're a little bit dumbed down i guess you'd say for lack of a better word yeah for sure the the harleys and indians racing the moto america baggers and it wanted to i wanted to mention to jim he'll maybe listen to this and hear this but that you know jim's a engineer uh he geeks out on a lot of the technical details in a good way but uh somebody i would think would be uh somewhat of a hero to him kevin cameron yes is a big fan of the baggers oh that's interesting i hadn't picked up on that yeah and all of the technical aspects of all of what they've done to make those bikes handle and go as fast as they do and he basically he basically relates them to like the early days of super bike racing right they were taking these big heavy bikes and turning them with with tons of power but that didn't handle worth a crap for the most part right and turning them into race bikes that were actually you know raceable uh as the super bikes progressed throughout their to what they are today you know and so found that kind of humorous but you know i think i'd mentioned back at road at lana that you know where we were setting where they go up the hill from turn 10 up under the bridge going towards the final corner that we were looking at the boxes they were going up that hill and we were getting the full sound effect on them and man you talk about sounding good when those bikes were pinning that throttle and those those big v twins screaming up that hill uh is very impressive it's it's hard not to like that sound for sure i think that's one thing about the baggers of this world championship thing would you rather see an e-bike out there because you sure couldn't hear them so i don't know yeah anyway to each their own but uh i'd much rather hear a big booming v twin like that than uh just a whiz go by but that's just me appreciate the electric technologies it's progressing it's a tough sell the visceral part of racing with all the the noise or music depending on who you ask and smells too is certainly it's a big part of the experience and i i've had this discussion with a lot of people over the past sort of five years and yeah it'll be it's definitely hard to imagine exclusively electric racing i don't think it'll happen for a while but i like that it's in there i like seeing the electric bikes no no like just let them race you know yeah locking the hooligans would be fantastic with yeah with the orange cat team with harron and uh i think it's start starting to happen in motocross too i think the some of the series are finally allowing like the stark barks to come in and you know they have some big advantages you know i think they're going to have a lot of fun and i think they're going to have a lot of fun i'm just curious here i've just pulled up internet here on the baggers and they are in the realm of you know 1.8 liters you know this weekend the harleys were given a 200 rpm rev limit increase from 7 000 to uh 7200 rpm that helped them a little bit i was just i was just curious like trying to find some horsepower numbers and you can't really find anything inclusive they're certainly making a lot of money and i think they're going to have a lot of fun and i think a lot more power than the super sport bikes they must be because there's no other way they could achieve anywhere near the same lap time so i have to look into that a little more i'll do a little bit of a dive on this because i i did this racing i decided to not disparage the baggers anymore the way i had been before and jim continues to do i understand it there's something slightly ridiculous about it i think the biggest thing that's just those giant front fairings are just and you see it on the street bikes too i mean it kind of looked the same and i just never understood the huge front fairing that it basically is as wide as the handlebars it looks odd to me and i find it i find it ugly so that's kind of my biggest complaint is like why do they have to have this giant front fairing what's that about maybe it's just about rider comfort and it's purely functional but and then the huge the huge light you know it's kind of weird it's all about getting more uh fans through the gate oh sure no that look of a stock bagger as much as possible because that's what the fans come and there's a lot of fans that show up for the bagger rounds no i get it for that so but you know fortunately the byproduct of that is hopefully they're seeing these other classes out there and at least some of those that started out as primarily bagger fans will start becoming fans of the other classes now some probably never will you know just that that's bringing more people through the gates i think i don't question that at all i was i was trying to express a little bit of what i was trying to say there's a lot of things that i find strange about these motorcycles in general and it goes i mean it's not these bikes it's just like the giant harley davidson bikes you see on the road there's something about that huge front fairing that i just find ugly for whatever that's worth the big gold wings do these don't look like that there's something the aesthetics of the nose end of the bike is just all very strange to me so so we'll actually talk about the racing here and the qualifier i mean the qualifying was almost the same as the racing here and the qualifying was almost the same as the racing here and the most impressive part i mean hayden gillum throws down a 216 one which like we said is just a couple of tenths off ty scott's best time for sport and i was just like how the hell is he able to do that i have a couple theories specific to hayden gillum hayden is a full-size dude he's not a jockey he's not 140 pound racer you know he's a i don't know how much he weighs but i think he's close to 200 pounds maybe he's 190 but he's a big dude he's a big dude he's a big dude he's a big strong guy i actually have a friend he's a mechanic and he he used to live up here in seattle and he used to build race motors for lots of people and moved down to california a few years back and he was actually this year he's he's one of the mechanics for hayden gillum on the on the honda superbike team and i was actually had a had a nice little chat with him at barber he was telling me he was like you know we can't keep hayden's clip-ons in the same position whenever he brings the bike in they're always in the same position and he's like you know we can't keep hayden's always rotated because he pushes so hard on the bars that he actually he overcomes the friction in in the way those clip-ons just you know they just clamp around the fork legs and he said like we can't tighten the bolts enough like we have to figure out new ways to keep these things in position because the bike will come back in and they'll be in a different spot because he's so big and strong that he actually moves stuff while he's racing the bike so i kind of my theory here is that maybe hayden is sort of the perfect size perfectly proportioned to race one of these 600 pound bagger bikes and he's big enough and strong enough to actually hustle the thing around better than anybody else and and maybe that's maybe that's part of part of why he's able to put in these incredible lap times he can just he can muscle the thing around you know maybe the other guys are just they don't quite have the inertia and the strength to force the bike to turn as quickly that's my theory yeah he definitely has the upper body strength to to manhandle the bike and he's got a lot of power and he's got a lot of power that behemoth of a yeah cycle around so that's that's probably at least got something to do with it if not a lot to do with it at least in the 15 minute qualifier he had over a second and a half on troy herfoss in in second place and kyle wyman in third who was basically doing the same time yeah in the qualifying one session he had just under a second over kyle wyman right in second and basically two seconds james raspoli yeah so he he it was that that that trend was consistent but it didn't really uh translate over at least in the two lap challenge race on saturday morning so which that's kind of a uh kind of an anomaly anyway but uh yeah you know i didn't even take any notes on that i i don't even know if i was aware of that race yeah they do on saturday mornings after the second qualifying the top six qualifiers do a two lap shootout it's a mission foods sponsored ordeal there's no points there's a five thousand dollar payout to the winner of the challenge and and nothing for finishing below that that's the five thousand dollar publicity stunt they do okay yeah so uh it's not always a good indicator uh right or how the race weekend's actually going to unfold but they you know good on harley they were at least able to take the win in that uh kyle wyman and bradley's in second i think on the last lap uh gilliam and herfoss basically didn't even take the checkered flag they just came on into the pits and because it's like well no need to make this extra lap for right right right oh that's kind of funny yeah but kyle wyman he won that over his teammate and former moto g about two and a half seconds so good on harley at their home round you know at least getting that yeah they had they had a little bit of a little bit of glory but not a lot that was about what it was limited to was the two lap race because yeah hayden he ran around a little bit behind wyman and herfoss and bradley at the very beginning of the race um but after a couple of laps he pulled he just pulled the pin and and rode away from everybody and then i think he backed off because he had a couple of second gap and just maintained it but yeah hayden easily won kyle wyman in second with bradley smith quite a ways back actually bradley was about five seconds behind kyle in third and then troy herfoss also a ways back another sort of six or seven seconds behind bradley and p4 with tyler o'hara on another indian right behind troy they they must have had a decent little battle there and then james rispoli and p6 kind of on his own and then max max toth and p7 also on his own and then way back another 30 seconds behind the lead kyle ownsberg uh and p8 no one lamb kin and p9 and then max flinders and p10 so it's kind of a it's kind of a it's kind of a it's kind of a it's kind of a it's kind of a interesting with max toth and uh nolan lamb kin they were racing in place of jake lewis and cory west on the saddleman yeah what what was the deal there they race in the bagger world championship okay right i keep forgetting that so they were there yeah they were in mugello yeah that's uh max toth i mean you know he's been racing in europe for the last few years in the uh the cev yeah spanish championship yeah and you know in the moto 2 class he was actually seems like he was actually last year supposed to get a couple of wild cards in the in the gp moto 2 class but for some reason i don't think it ever materialized but uh yeah max is a american that's trying to make a go of it in europe so good on him nolan lamb kin um i don't think he's got a regular gig in moto america this year last few years he's raced in the superbike cup for his own team but yeah anyway good to see those guys so we'll move on to race two on sunday wyman again got the whole shot from p3 on the grid but only for part of the first lap hayden didn't really hang around this time and he passed him for the lead on the first lap and just pulled away from wyman and bradley smith on the harleys who incidentally had a pretty great battle that was really the most entertaining part of this race was watching kyle wyman and bradley smith go back and forth on those bikes they had some good battles on the last lap kyle ran wide at turn five which was a downhill braking zone at the end of the back straight and this allowed bradley to get past him and finish uh in p2 hayden just dominated he won the race this time by almost four seconds um and again i don't think he i think he got out front and then just maintained the gap it was a little more spread out hayden and winning with bradley smith 3.7 seconds behind and kyle wyman a few seconds behind him in p3 and then troy herford and then bradley smith and then bradley smith and then troy herford and then bradley smith and then bradley smith and then bradley smith and then fos p4 but tyler o'hara and p5 and james raspoli and p6 they were i guess james and tyler they were very close they had a battle to the line for fifth place and then rocco landers and p7 and nola lampkin a ways back in p8 and kyle ownsberg and max flinders in ninth and tenth so i found it pretty entertaining though i i you know there was so much racing going on i was having trouble finding the time to watch all this stuff but i did watch the race and i was like oh my god did end up watching the the baggers and found it pretty entertaining it is cool i'm i'm glad they're doing it if for no other reason than to just expand the fan base and you know it's cool to see harley back in the in the paddock they've been in and out over the years with different efforts and sure it's cool and also the vance and hines indian it's i mean terry vance is there in the pits i don't vance and hines has been around forever i mean they used it used to be vance and hines yamaha with like you know colin edwards racing james james james james james james james james like we're going back into the late 80s early in early 90s here and so there's some real veterans here back in the paddock doing various things and it's that's cool i appreciate that so yeah sure sure so actually uh if it wasn't for that uh second race at daytona back in march where gilliam had a dnf if it wasn't a dnf he didn't score many points only seven points other than that he's won every race he's he's five for six right it's no far with uh so that obviously gives him the number one spot in the points at 132 troy herfoss he has one race win and a couple of seconds and has been consistent enough to he's been very consistent yeah yes so he's he's still you know within 30 points of and he's uh is he is he an aussie i think he's an aussie oh yeah troy herfoss is a multi-time australian super bike champion and he also used to do some uh when they had the super moto series that was going pretty strong several years ago he raced in that over here and i think i had a good bit of success doing that yeah herfoss very experienced racer yeah so yeah so he's at 107 and second bradley smith and third at 91 kyle wyman fourth 77 tyler o'hara currently running out the top five at 64 indian was was there last year right yeah and yeah last it's kind of flipped from last year because kyle wyman won the championship last year on the harley it doesn't look like he's going to be able to defend that this year i don't know if you're aware of were there any rules changes that gave indians some some concessions for this year or they just upped their game i'm just no i think the i think the biggest thing was that they took their their in-house race team and farmed it out to terry vance and the vance and heinz crew but yeah it was just a seems like mainly a result of that uh getting uh the vance and heinz crew behind them interesting i'm getting more interested in this i'm gonna have to do my duty and read up on a little bit more and report on this it's yeah so we'll see the baggers in action again uh in july at laguna oh man that'll be that'll be entertaining yeah they generally have raced there yeah that'll be cool to see scott you want to tell us about the royal enfield doltrain race series that was back here at road america this past weekend yeah sure so the ladies were in uh on the schedule for road america so race one you had uh brianna everett taking the win over jasmine noel tatty pazay pazay i'm not sure she's i think she's along with several other ladies running that from uh brazil uh that's running that series this year so anyway that was your top three and then on jasmine noel took the win over tatty pazay and emily dickinson rounded out podium brianna everett was a dnf on sunday so that's why she was probably up there in the mix because she's been racing up front and winning so far in that class this year so as far as your championship points jasmine noel is on top at 85 tatty pazay sorry tatty if i'm sure butchering that at 62 brianna at 60 and brianna everett at 57 so yeah brianna everett was a dnf on sunday and brianna color was a dnf on saturday so actually brianna color had won the first two rounds yeah the first round won both races and brianna everett had won of course on saturday at road america jasmine noel who's leading the points has been the most consistent with three second place finishes and then that win on sunday at road america so uh that's that's what's got her up top in the point standings there so well yeah we'll see those ladies in action again at the ridge yeah so that's that's pretty good championship so far between those top three or four yeah no it's great i i think it's a it's a great series and i did i do remember seeing them last year at the ridge and i'll see them again in a few weeks so i just want to make one if anybody's still listening please write in with questions comments whatever you have we love hearing from listeners i think you can do it directly on the website and i believe you can just email motopod at motopodcast.com and we will everyone all the hosts will get the emails and we all read them and we tend to respond to most of them so please write in it's it's part of the experience we like to have an interaction with the listener and please consider supporting the show any way you can uh every little bit helps and also rate rate the show i don't know how to rate the show because depending on which podcast app you're using it's not very easy so i apologize for not being able to explain how to do it but there are ways to rate the shows maybe you can tell me how to rate my own show and this this helps get a little more exposure and potentially new listeners so anything else scott before we close out another show here just looking forward to seeing what kind of killer interviews you can uh get for us at the ridge here at the end of the month yeah i do need to do that i will make every attempt yeah you got got a couple there barber and uh got your uh your interview cherry pop so you're ready to go now yeah i gotta get at least four this time i can't force force the goal you can do it all yeah yeah well i i think i think i think we'll be able to make it happen good deal wish i could join you out there maybe some year you can get out here it is it is a cool track for sure all right scott well with that i think we'll bid you all a farewell and see you next time bye at the next show at probably the very beginning of july zoom zoom sounds good cheers singing so you Transcription by CastingWords