Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/842139
ROAD RACE ROUND 5 / JUNE 24-25, 2017 UTAH MOTORSPORTS CAMPUS / SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH P100 2017 MOTOAMERICA On Sunday, Elias' second win didn't come without a fight. This time the squabble up front was with his teammate, Hayden, who found a better setup than the one he used to finish sec- ond Saturday, and it kept him in the battle to the very end. He came up 0.450 seconds short of Elias. "It was a really good week- end, especially yesterday when I made the mistake, but still win the race," Elias said. "I think it is a thing we didn't expect, but it was good. Today I didn't want to touch too much my setup, but I know these guys [my com- petitors] are always working a lot and improving. I was thinking 'tomorrow I need to do some- thing extra, no?' And we did it. This morning was really good, our pace was better than yes- terday, but the bike very hectic on the bumps. I made three or four mistakes during the race; that was because on the bumps the front was [reacting]. It was good for me to see that because I understood what was my limit, what corners I could push more than the others, and at the end I push where I could push. I didn't push where I couldn't." Hayden was pleased to be closer to his teammate after los- ing out by 2.4 seconds to Elias on Saturday. "I'm a lot more pleased with today's performance than yester- day's," Hayden said. "Yesterday Toni was just a couple notches above the rest of us, and me for it was mostly okay. It took me a few laps to make sure every- thing was good. My lap times kept getting quicker as the laps wound down despite my head getting buffeted pretty good going down the front straight without the windscreen. Being so far back, the best I could hope for was a red flag. It's been a terrible weekend for me so far, and to lose all those points, plus causing my guys to have to stay late again tonight to fix my bike just makes it all the worse. I've got a great team, though, and I'm confident that we'll turn it around for tomorrow." Broaster Genuine Chicken Honda's Jake Gagne was a non-starter after a crash dur- ing Superpole damaged his Honda badly enough that the team couldn't get it repaired for Saturday's race. He chose to sit out Sunday's race, as well. dust himself off and finish, but could only muster 16th and thus didn't score any championship points. He now finds himself 39 points behind Elias after nine of 20 races (10 rounds). "I had a terrible Superpole, so we changed the engine in my R1, and we were looking forward to the race," Beaubier said. "With the motor change, I was confident that we could run up front. I got a really good start, which has been my weakness, so I felt really good about that. I was in third coming out of the first corner, but when everything settled, I was in the lead. So, I settled into a rhythm, and got a good pace going. I got into turn six a little hot, so I gave myself some room to make the turn. I didn't expect the front to tuck as easily as it did, and I slid into the dirt. I got the bike restarted, and other than the windscreen, Beaubier suffered a couple of crashes over the weekend but pulled it together for at least a podium in race two.