ROAD RACE
FIM NORTH AMERICAN ROAD RACING CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 1 / MAY 29-31, 2019
ROAD AMERICA / ELKHART L AKE, WISCONSIN
P62
on last year's title-winning Twins
Cup bike, run by the M4 Ecstar
Suzuki outfit. Landers will also race
selected rounds of the Junior Cup,
the series he demolished last year,
as well as taking his place in the
European Red Bull Rookies series,
when and if that gets off the ground
for 2020.
JAKE LEWIS ON A BMW
Former Yoshimura Suzuki and M4
Ecstar Suzuki rider Jake Lewis
stitched together a last-minute deal
to ride a second Schiebe Racing
BMW alongside Josh Herrin. The
Kentucky rider acquitted himself
well to the task of the beastly BMW
after an eight-month road-racing
layoff, taking ninth in Superpole
with a 2:14.894 with no testing time.
He raced to a ninth in race one but
failed to finish race two. No word
yet if he'll be back for round two at
the same venue at the end of June.
Briefly...
Race favorite Sean Dylan Kelly (40) was hounding leader Richie
Escalante (54) before high-siding big time in the middle of the race,
eventually walking away unhurt. That left the Mexican to take his first
career MotoAmerica win and Kawasaki's first in an AMA-sanctioned
road race win since Leandro Mercado's 2009 win at Daytona. Brandon
Paasch (21, Celtic HSBK Racing Yamaha) made a welcome return to
American racing with second and former Junior Cup star Kevin Olmedo
(Altus Motorsports Suzuki) taking a debut Supersport podium in third.
The Twins Cup race was a classic, with class debutant Rocco Landers (97)
going head-to-head with 2019 Laguna Seca race winner Kaleb DeKeyrel.
Landers showed awesome speed across Friday practice but his Suzuki
suffered on top speed to DeKeyrel's well-sorted Yamaha, and the Texan
managed to stay with Landers all the way to the flag, eventually pipping the
2019 Junior Cup Champion by the absolutely miniscule margin of 0.002
seconds. Third went to 2019 Twins Cup series challenger Jason Madama
(Syndicate Racing/Apex Assassins Yamaha), who held off former series
champion Chris Parrish by another tiny 0.006 of a second.
