Saturday was one of the tougher days that Westby Racing has had in its many visits to Road America over the years. Superbike rider Mathew Scholtz finished an uncharacteristic 6th in his race, and teammate Jack Roach came in 14th in Junior Cup. Both riders have struggled from the get-go of the weekend, and Mathew qualifed sixth in Superbike, while Jack lined up seventh on the Junior Cup starting grid.
Mathew had hoped to move up as the 12-lap Superbike race progressed, but he was only able to move into fifth a couple of times during the race, and he just couldn’t make it stick or advance any further.
"It was a really difficult day,” Mathew said. “We knew from looking at Friday’s data that we were struggling a little bit with the top speed of the bike and also the acceleration, but we definitely improved the setup for the race. We were able to do a couple of 12’s (laps in the 2:12 range) during the race, which was positive. Right now, we know it’s not going to be our weekend to challenge up front, and we knew these weekends would happen, so we are just going to salvage as many points and try to do as best as we can. The team is working extremely hard to try and improve the overall package, and I need to improve myself in a couple of corners. Sixth place is definitely not what we were looking for. We’re going to try a couple of changes on Sunday to hopefully get better drive out of the corners and also improve our corner speed. Hopefully, we can finish higher than we did in race one and learn from this experience as we continue through the season.”
Sunday’s Superbike race two is at 3 p.m. CT and will be broadcast live on FOX Sports 1 (FS1), as well as streamed on MotoAmerica Live+.
In Saturday’s Junior Cup race, Jack started from the inside of the third row, but he quickly got swallowed up by the pack, which moved him further back. He stabilized his situation and remained in 13th place for five of the seven laps in the race, but he lost another position as the race neared its conclusion, and he had to settle for 14th at the checkered flag.
Jack and the team will re-group and try for better results in Sunday’s Junior Cup race two, which is at 2 p.m. CT and will be streamed on MotoAmerica Live+ as well as broadcast via tape-delay on FOX Sports 2 (FS2) this Tuesday, May 25, at 9:30 p.m. ET.
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