MotoAmerica ‘22 Recap

By Pete Gorski
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Updated: June 8, 2022

[Pete Gorski Photo]

by Pete Gorski

It’s a shame motorcycle racing doesn’t get more attention in the United States. Of all forms of motorsport, only motorcycle racing let’s you see the physical exertion involved in going fast, whether it’s wrestling the bike for control as it bucks under power, or dragging a knee or elbow through a sweeping turn. And at a place like Road America, where MotoAmerica just staged their fifth event of the year, fans are frequently able to see the riders’ eyes, weather and clear visors permitting.

For better or worse, for two of the three days, the fans had plenty of opportunity to see through those clear visors. Not a single cloud shaded the track for a moment on Friday, but as Saturday became Sunday, skies turned from spotless blue to a splotchy grey. Rain tires were fitted for Sunday’s early sessions as a steady but not overwhelming rain slicked the racing surface. An unwelcome complication to Sunday’s action came from the King of the Baggers series. It’s not every day you see members of a sanctioning body’s staff out on the track dabbing at the surface with towels, but a bagger suffered an oil leak during morning warm-ups, and because of the rain, oil-dry couldn’t be used. In the afternoon the rain mostly stopped, but the lack of sunlight to dry the track meant most of the weekend’s finals races were contested on rain tires.

That’s not to say that the racing wasn’t exciting on Sunday, and several storylines carried over from Saturday’s contests. Medallia SuperBike Race 1 saw Jake Gagne and Danilo Petrucci enter the braking zone of turn five inches apart, but also carrying way too much speed. The pair ran wide, with Petrucci rejoining but several places aft of where he had been. Gagne attempted to ride through the gravel trap at the exit of the turn but lost his balance, dumping the Yamaha. He righted the bike, but his shot at a win was swallowed up by all that gravel.

Petrucci recovered well, taking the lead on lap five. But after holding the position for five of the next six circuits, he lost the lead and the win to Mathew Scholtz in a photo finish, .015 separating the pair at the line. Petrucci spent some time in the lead of Race 2 as well, but not as much as he would have liked, or when it mattered most. The Ducati driver fell back to third, fighting with PJ Jacobsen’s BMW as Cameron Petersen and his Yamaha took the win by 1.3sec.

The results of two other races had special relevance to southeast Wisconsin. Jason Farrell of Oshkosh used his years of experience at Road America to overcome both a nagging knee injury and points-leader Josh Herrin to take the win in Supersport’s Race 2, his cool-down lap a festival of smiles and finger-points at the supportive fans ringing the 4.048-mile circuit.

Equally popular with the locals was the result in the King of the Baggers race. With a large hospitality presence outside of turn five, the Harley-Davidson faithful cheered passionately as Travis and Kyle Wyman outdueled the Indians of Jeremy McWilliams and Tyler O’Hara for the win, the victorious pair celebrating with a stop in front of the turn five grandstand.

For more results from the weekend, visit www.motoamerica.com

Pete Gorski

I’ve been a race fan from the first time my Dad put a slot-car controller in my hand. That was back in the 1970s, and in the intervening years, I’ve spent hours watching racing, photographing racing, and for the past seven years, writing about racing. My work has appeared in Victory Lane magazine and SpeedTour Quarterly, along with the Visors Down Motorsports Photography Facebook page.

www.gorskiphotoservices.com

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