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The MotoAmerica championship is getting interesting. Since Petrucci arrived, the races have been more of a battle than last year, when Jake Gagne completely dominated the series.
This often happens when a new rider arrives on the starting line-up and is fast. He raises the bar, and the other riders, as well as the championship and spectators gain from this. Even if we should say that, right now, Jake Gagne is making the most of it, with seven victories against Petrucci's three and Scholtz's one, bringing prestige to the series created by Wayne Rainey aimed at relaunching “Made in the USA” motorcycling.
The syllogism is simple: Petrucci is a fast rider, Gagne is able to beat him, so Jake is a high-level rider.
Besides some misunderstanding about safety management, MotoAmerica has had everything to gain from Petrux’s presence. After all, America isn’t Europe, and this makes us think that, all things considered, when Kenny Roberts definitively joined the World Championship in 1978, he didn’t have to struggle much to adapt to the safety standards of the Continental Circus, which were definitely lower than they are today.
So Jake Gagne was particularly satisfied when, after a long chase yesterday, he took the lead in the championship with three points.
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"Getting a holeshot makes life easy. These Yamahas are really getting off the grid good," Gagne explained, referring to his excellent start. "Especially today. I was really expecting to see a front wheel come up the inside. I wanted to do everything I could to at least push the pace, try to get a few laps in, and see where we’re all at. In a way, I was a bit surprised. We made some changes this morning. We went out in warm-up and kind of just rolled around and tried not to do anything crazy. The bike was better today. We got more life out of the tire. Our fastest laps were faster today. Doing those twenty-fours was a lot easier for me today. In a way, yesterday’s race was a lot more of a struggle than today. So, I’m just stoked that we made that headway. Even if we win, we’re still learning. We still need to go faster because these guys are coming. That being said, I think that is what I was stoked on, that we made progress. The bike felt good. I had a ton of fun riding around there, sliding around on this track. Even before the year, this has never been my best track. I’ve never felt like I’ve had any secrets here, so I kind of owe it all to the team and owe it all to this bike getting better and better, and these guys working so damn hard. This is the one track I’ve always been a little nervous about. Last year, the Ducati was really, really strong here. Almost beat us. We’re already halfway through the year. I’m not thinking about points. Just trying to keep winning races. No matter what, all these guys deserve to be up here. Hats off to Cam (Petersen) and Danilo (Petrucci) putting on a show. I saw that corkscrew once I got back to the hotel last night.. That was wild. Hats off to everybody. It’s good to see a great turnout here too."
Photo by Brian J. Nelson
