Barber Motorsports Park is a favorite venue for Westby Racing, and the team’s performance on Saturday at the Alabama racetrack underscored the reasons why. Mathew Scholtz finished on the podium in the afternoon’s Superbike race, and Cody Wyman was eight in Junior Cup.
Mathew, who has reached the podium in 9 out of the 13 races so far this season, started from the second position on the grid aboard his Westby Racing YZF-R1 Superbike, got a good jump off the line, took it straight to championship leader and polesitter Cameron Beaubier, and even led the race briefly before Cameron passed him back and went on to win the race. Mathew then had to contend with Cameron’s teammate Jake Gagne. Jake also got by Mathew, but then, Mathew held onto third place tenaciously for the remaining 17 circulations of the 20-lap event and rounded out the all-Yamaha podium.
“Once Jake came past me, I kind of thought that he would be quicker for the first half, but we kind of got to the halfway point, and I wasn’t catching him as quickly as I thought that I would,” Mathew said. “So, we just have to go back to the trailer tomorrow and try to find some drive out of the corners. I feel like that’s where we were losing our time to Cam and Jake. Cam was just flying, and Jake definitely pulled something out of the hat today.”
In Saturday’s Junior Cup race and aboard the only Yamaha YZF-R3 in the field, Cody qualified 12th, which put him back on the fourth row and at a distinct disadvantage from the start. And, as has been the case this entire season, he found himself mired in a pack of seven riders who were all battling for fourth place in the results. Being in the best position on the final lap and across the finish line is, of course, the name of the game, and considering where he started, finishing eighth at the checkers was a decent result and an admirable job by Cody.
“I made it really hard on myself in qualifying,” Cody said. “We tried getting a tow in the final qualifying session this morning, but it just didn’t work out, and I had to start at the end of the fourth row in 12th. In the race, even though I didn’t get the best start, I managed to get around a couple of riders. I was only a couple of seconds behind a big battle, and I fought hard to catch the group. I made some passes and got shuffled around. One time, I think I passed four or five bikes going into turn five. I was pretty happy to be in a battle for fourth for the last half of the race. As most of the Junior Cup races are, though, the shuffling continued, and I ended up in eighth at the finish. Overall. it wasn’t a bad race. The softer suspension settings that we went with gave me more confidence and more front-end feel, which is something that I was lacking yesterday and this morning. We’ll try to do better tomorrow and hopefully finish in the top five.”
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