Cycle News

CHAMPIONSHIP VOL. 52 ISSUE 29 JULY 21, 2015 P117 around that last lap and brought her home." Fong saw it a little differently, but felt it was just a racing inci- dent. "On the last lap I had a little contact with another rider but it's part of racing," Fong said. "I would have done the same thing. I'm not mad at him for "It wasn't until right at the very end when I finally got there and caught [Fong] real quick. I was able to put a move on Bobby real early. Everyone saw what hap- pened. There was no contact, but it definitely spooked him a bit. Unfortunately he went down; messed me up a bit so that was it for catching Josh. I just rode "I saw that I was the next bike in line after Bobby [Fong] and [Josh] Herrin; I wasn't sure I was going to be able to catch him," Anthony said. "It took a long, long time. I could see it sort of chipping away, chipping away. But I just stuck in there and just watched my lap timer and just made sure I put the laps in. ORTT'S DAY, MCALLISTER HEARTBREAK KTM RC 390 Cup points leader Gage McAllister needed just three points to clinch the title at Laguna Seca, but unfortunately the Northern Californian went out early while leading the race when his chain broke. Right there to step into that top spot was Canadian Braeden Ortt who held off Anthony Mazziotto III to take home his second-straight MotoAmerica KTM RC390 Cup victory. "We went into corner five braking," Ortt said. "[McAl- lister] got his downshifts and then it looked like a belt or something came flying up and then I realized that was a chain. I felt bad for him but it tightened up the champion- ship and it's going to make it better for the fans and all of us." As a result of the technical problem, McAllister's healthy points lead dropped down to just 22 points over Ortt going into the final round in New Jersey in Septem- ber. It wasn't smooth sailing after McAllister's departure. Mazziotto kept him honest. "The gap had fluctuated, I think it was at .07 of a sec- ond at one time," Ortt said. "Then at one point Anthony was ahead of me so the race was very, very close. Like you said, it really could have gone either way but last-lap mistakes were made and I knew that I really had to ride a clean lap to stay ahead and did my best to do that. I think I got a pretty good lap in. Set myself up nice last corner for that drive to make sure I didn't get drafted. Luckily that finish line was where it was." However the hard charger award went to series new- comer Xavier Zayat, who worked his way from dead last to join the pair on the podium. Zayat ran off track in turn two after Hayden Schultz made contact with him. "Hayden Schultz came firebombing everybody and lost the rear," Zayat said about the incident. "I guess he thinks he has glue on his tires and he just hammered the gas, the back came out, hit my leg. I lost the rear. I kind of shook like that and I flew right off the track. I was so lucky that I didn't crash in the gravel because the gravel's pretty deep. But I got back on the track dead last and then I just kind of had to make my way through the pack." Although it was Zayat's MotoAmerica debut, the 16-year-old has plenty of racing experience. "I've raced CCS and ASRA and WERA on 600s," Zayat said. "That's why I didn't really start off the year with KTM. I kind of finished lightweight bikes last year on an SV. I kind of decided that that was it and I should move up. And with the 600s I've been doing pretty well in club racing. But once I saw how competitive this class was I thought it would be good for me to get my feet wet in MotoAmerica before I decide to do superstock next year." It was a tight battle for fourth and it went to Alejandro Gutierrez Mejia who edged out Josh Serne by a mere .03 of a second. Jody was sixth ahead of Brandon Alt- meyer who got shuffled back in the battle. Gabe Miller was eighth and rounding out the top 10 was Christopher Kosan and Ashton Wright. Braedon Ortt scored his second-straight KTM Cup win.

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