TRS on Road Atlanta | AMA Pro Road Racing
- From: TRS Media | Published: April 6th, 2009 - 9:45 am
Overwhelming… there really is too much to talk about. The weekend all told was a success for almost everyone. It’s a travel day for us so I’m going to try to quickly touch on the high points. We’ll be putting the full stories and images together for some time.
Off the top of my head the Josh Day story comes to mind. This kid is racing in the newly formed Supersport class AKA the young guns class. He’s been one of the fastest kids out there all year qualifying on the pole at Daytona and again this weekend at Road Atlanta. Daytona’s an old story now but there was drama. This weekend he ran the fastest time in qualifying just before he piled the bike into the ground. Thinking his time wouldn’t stand the crew worked frantically on the bike to try to get him back out for at least one more quick lap before the end of the session. About ten bloody knuckles later they failed to get the bike ready but it made no difference because his time stood up and Josh was again on the pole.
Beat-up looking bike and all, Josh starts Sunday’s race from the pole in a slight drizzle. Apparently the higher powers aren’t race fans because if this gig isn’t hard enough the kids had to race in what is likely the worst conditions of all; a slight rain on the front half of the track with significantly more rain coming down at the back of the track in corner seven and the ‘esses.’ Josh gets a good start and piles into the ground again, actually pile is too strong a term – more like a slight tuck and off the track he slid. He was able to get back on but had to run through tech to have the bike looked at quickly to assure its safety (good idea). By the time he returns to the track he’s half a lap behind but don’t worry, this is the tenacious-kid class… remember? The rain in the back half picked up a bit and five or six riders piled up in five and seven. No serious injuries thankfully but the sheer number of bikes in the pile caused a red flag and there was a restart. Eighteenth on the grid usually doesn’t sound like a good thing but remember (believe it or not) this is a happy story, and eighteenth or not he still made up half a lap on Leandro Mercado the leader. So the race is restarted and Josh bar bangs and pounds his way all the way back through the field to finish on the podium. It’s about as gritty a performance as I can remember and a reminder of how sometimes youth and enthusiasm conquers, even over youth and enthusiasm.
The second ‘big success’ story that grabbed me came from someone who could hardly be called an underdog. He’s a rider I like very much one of the nicest guys in the paddock and if your not already nauseaus sitting on the grid with him on Sunday a couple cute girls came over to ask him for a picture and told him they didn’t know his name but they would just call him “super hot guy,” sometimes it’s got to suck to be Chris Peris, but not this day (I digress). The truth is that Chris is super fast and on his Erion mount it was only a matter of time until he appeared on the podium and today was the day. Unable to race at Road Atlanta last year and with the rain-hindered practice on Friday Chris actually has very few laps on the ‘newly’ configured track. His qualifying results showed it but on Sunday in his usual ‘quietly optimistic’ way he expressed some confidence about his chances. Chris had a decent start and the Sportbike race on Sunday had some attrition issues but Chris ran a determined and smart race and landed his Erion Honda on the podium for the first time (in the 600 class) in his career. As far as the attrition issue is concerned, while that is exciting I don’t attach any asterisk to events when that happens. Racing is racing. You have to finish to get the win. Different points systems are configured to reward winning or to reward consistency and that will all sort itself out in the end but there’s nothing like putting it on the box and Chris’s effort to do so this weekend was huge. Not to mention that he set the fastest lap of all who finished and should get (if there was one) the hard charger award. Congratulations on an outstanding result Chris Perris!
Our third outstanding achievement of the weekend award goes to a rider that I’ve been looking forward to writing about for some time but because of all the bumps in the road on the way to actual success in AMA Pro Racing, haven’t quite had the opportunity to do so yet. He’s got all the right stuff. He’s young, fast, has great family support, and has paid his dues. He was a factor in every race he was in this weekend doing double duty on two totally different bikes, not to mention that he’s also (like me) from the great state of Michigan. Taylor Knapp had a hell of a weekend! In Sunday’s Sportbike race he came very close to changing the outcome of the weekend for Peris. The difference between third and fourth in that race seems to be attributed to Knapp coming by Chris a bit to early on the back straightway allowing Chris to get in the draft and come back by him at the end of the back straight.
Drama and/or the growing pains of racing didn’t elude Taylor completely. In Saturday’s Superbike race he was running just outside of the top five when, with only a handful of laps left, he blew a motor running down the back straight. A big factor in the credit being paid to Taylor for his success this weekend can be attributed to (much to the chagrin of Ben) the fact that on Saturday, until he popped the motor and then again on Sunday when he closed the deal, he was ahead of the factory Yamaha and its well-known pilot. Bostrom obviously struggled this weekend but when we where talking Sunday, much to his credit, he was more interest in expressing kudos to Taylor than whining about his own issues, a factor in his long and beloved relationship with his fans. Ben actually said that he thinks that had Taylor been on equal equipment as the couple riders in front of them, he would likely have been second. It was obvious that Ben held Taylor’s riding this weekend in high regard. As well as the commentary on the quality of Taylor’s riding Ben also had some funny stories about the opportunities the two riders had to scare the sh.. out of each other. The first shot came from Taylor. Ben was sucking up his draft running wide open and flat out down the back straight (which, for those who don’t know, is as fast at Road Atlanta as anywhere) when Ben picked up that unmistakable scent of burning oil. Ben said the first thought that went through his mind was that he couldn’t believe that his weekend could be any worse and in the event of Taylor spraying oil on the track at the end of the back straight ‘a lot worse.’ Fortunately for everyone involved there was no huge drama and Taylor felt it in time to get off the throttle in time to pull off safely.
The second shot came from Ben, in the effort to net a better result in race two for his team and himself. Ben was pushing hard trying to stay with Tommy Hayden and the rest of the front pack that was starting to creep away from him. Hard enough that all of a sudden the back end snapped around on him and in that moment of clarity that all road racers know he looked to the side to see Taylors eyes, big as saucers, as he was just about to t-bone Ben at about a buck twenty. Fortunately for everyone involved Ben was able to gather it back up and save the impending highside. He did however lose his momentum. Taylor went by him and that’s all she wrote. So congratulations to a good rider and his dad who have been plugging away at this thing for several years, hopefully it’s just the first of many successes.
So that’s it for now, we’re on the road, We’ve got lots of stuff in the pipeline from both the AMA at Road Altanta and World Suerbike at Valencia so stay tuned. Hopefully on the way home I’ll be able to come to grips with the thousand or so images and I’ll try to put up a few of them soon. Later.
