MotoAmerica Twins : The Aftermath VIR 2019

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First, All photos are by Sara Spicer. See more photos of hers here:
https://sarachappellphotos.pixieset.com/


After two rounds the series championship sees the ’18 champ, Chris Parrish, on top just 5 points over Curtis Murray. The two had a massive battle at Virginia International Raceway. But a lot went down behind them, including crashes mechanical, and mistakes. It’s time to point fingers and call it like it is. Few guys stepped up and few guys left me scratching my head.

The two men above and Michael Barnes were the class of the field. Those three riders were fast and left everyone in the dust.

Michael Barnes – DNF – He continued were he left off at Road Atlanta with setting pole position and starting to check out in the race. But it would not go his way. A spark plug wire came loose which forced the double race winner at Atlanta to retire at VIR. Michael set the fastest lap of the race by just a hair over Parrish. It would have been nice to see if Murray and Parrish could have battled with Barnes. Best Time – 1:33.157

Chris Parrish- 1st Place– The dude continues to impress and show why he was the 2018 series champion. He didn’t get a great start or do all that well in qualifying. When it came time to boogie, he went to work. Getting through the top 5 and tracking down Curtis Murray who was fighting with Michael Barnes for the lead. It was an awesome battle for that lead spot. With 2 or 3 laps to go, Parrish got held up pretty bad by a lapped rider and I thought that would be it. But the #1 went to work and took the #1 spot. It was an awesome race for the Ghetto Customs man. Best Time – 1:33.183

Curtis Murray – 2nd Place – After Road Atlanta I was a bit concerned with the arm pump issue but it didn’t seem to be much a problem this time around. Curtis who did some decent damage to the bike in practice rebounded and qualified well and raced even better. One downside to Murray’s riding was his mistakes going into turn 1. He went super late on the brakes a few times and overcooked the corner. Best Time – 1:33.219

Those three guys were on another level. But the fight for 3rd place was a good one and it should have been a much larger battle. It was still a 4 rider fight Draik Beauchamp, Robert Fisher, Joseph Blasius, and Just Fillice were a freight train for the entire race. Beauchamp was able to secure that final podium spot. This group was over 12 seconds behind race winner Parrish.

Draik Beauchamp – 3rd Place – The kid rode well all weekend. Very impressed, not much else to say. Congrats Draik. Best Time – 1:34.594

Robert Fisher – 4th Place – This badass pulled double duty racing both the Twins class and Supersport class on his ZX6R. I think the strategy worked out for him. His lap times were very good. He told me after the race he thought he was fighting for 5th place, not the last podium spot, next time fight harder :). Best Time – 1:34.106

Joseph Blasius – 5th Place – I do believe Blasius will get even better as the season goes on, that M4 Suzuki team who isn’t using the OEM ecu will slowly learn the bike and get it better and better. – Best Time – 1:34.520

Justin Fillice – DNF – Fillice would crash near the end of the race and suffered a few broken ribs. Best Time – 1:34.323

This battle for third is great, Fisher with the fastest time. it’s awesome to see 4 riders there going for it. But why was it only 4 riders? In all honesty, it should have been 7-8 or 15 riders. But who messed up or didn’t deliver?

Ned Brown- 6th place – Guy rode amazing, setting personal best lap times. He was so close to being in the battle for the last podium spot but by the end of the race he was about 7 seconds off that battle. Not knocking him in anyway, awesome ride, great 6th place finish. Best Time – 1:34.768

Chris Bays – 7th place – I gotta say, even tho he had a respectable 7th place finish, his speed was not what I thought it would be. I’m pretty sure he is feeling the same way. I really thought he would be someone who would have been fighting in that 2nd lead group. I’ve seen Bays go much faster from what he showed us this weekend. If someone had told me Bays wasn’t in the 1:34 time range, i’d have told them to stop lying to me. I know his bike is running very well but if the mojo isn’t there, it’s not there. I hope he gets it back, the former MA Twins podium finisher deserves to be there. Best Time – 1:35.718

Jerry Reeves – 8th place – Fine, i’ll throw you a bone, You’re finally a top 10 finisher 😉 – Best Time – 1:36.455

Daniel Adams – 9th place – A bit surprised he didn’t twist the throttle harder. Guy has some serious speed but we didn’t really see it. He finished nearly a minute behind the leaders. Maybe there are some other factors I am not aware of. Best Time – 1:38.409

I’m going to pause for a second. 9th place was only a 1:38 lap time? No way, going into this weekend, I assumed everyone in the top 10 would have been 1:35s and faster. Where was the speed? I can be included in that list of 1:35 no shows in the top 10, I didn’t even start the race. Who else was missing from the top 10 that should have been doing 1:35s or faster?

Kris Turner – 11th place – At first glance the 11th place makes you puzzled but you need to know that Turner did go off track and down in the mud. He picked up his SV650 and charged through the field so that 11th place isn’t what he wanted or what we expected but it’s a good finish from where it could have been. Best Time – 1:35.417

Jason Madama – 23rd place – Jason, like Turner, had a rough weekend. Down and off track. He managed some decent lap times but the ending result is far from what the 2018 season runner up expected. Best Time – 1:35.449

Ray Hoffman – DNF – Just another guy in the 1:35 lap time range, he could have maybe got into the 1:34s but instead has a DNF next to his name. The chain on his SV650 popped off and ended the ASRA Thunderbike champs race. I really wanted Hoffman to be well into the top 10. Best Time – 1:35.516

Darren James – DNF – James has the speed and was starting to get there this weekend. He never got the lap times down enough and ended up hitting the deck. Best Time – 1:36.118

Alex Dumas – DNS – Alex crashed in practice and hurt his hand. He was unable to participate in the race.

Sam Wiest – DNS – Do I talk in the third person or first person here? Anyway, I didn’t race, got a few laps in practice. Slight bike mechanical which at first was thought to be a broken valve spring turned out to be something really simple in a cracked intake boot.

Doane Richardson – 19th place – I’ve seen this man do 1:35s on his mild SV650 but like Chris Bays above, if the mojo isn’t there it isn’t there. Best Time – 1:40.028

That’s 8 guys who should have been doing 1:35s or faster that didn’t either finish the race or start the race to begin with.
The top 13 in qualifying were all 1:35s or faster. A few were faster in Q1 than the race. Michael Barnes is the obvious one that would have change the final outcome of this race. My prediction of the race results are far different from what they actually were. My top 20 prediction for the race prior to the weekend below and even then I think the 5th place through 18th place guys could be shuffled around in just about any order and look like a believable finishing spot for that rider.

1st – Michael Barnes
2nd – Curtis Murray
3rd – Chris Parrish
4th – Kris Turner
5th – Alex Dumas
6th – Chris Bays
7th – Joseph Bladius
8th – Robert Fisher
9th – Draik Beauchamp
10th – Jason Madama
11th – Ray Hoffman
12th – Sam Wiest
13th – Ned Brown
14th – Daniel Adams
15th – Darren James
16th – Justin Fillice
17th – Doane Richardson
18th – Gillis Glidewell
19th – Jerry Reeves
20th – Sean Dougherty
Disclaimer – this was my prediction, not the actual race results!

But as we can see, the top 20 was far different from what my thoughts of it were. That’s racing. It’s unpredictable. Out of 42 that were signed up and the 36 that made the grid, only 26 finished the race. 10 DNF/DNS… that’s not good. Could have been even more DNFs if a few guys didn’t pick their bikes up and finish the race. It does appear the twins class had WAY less mechanical issues this round from the Road Atlanta round.

Since everyone cares so much about who had what top speed…. Top speed goes to Joseph Bladius on his Suzuki SV650 at 140.519 which happened to be the exact same as Darren James on his Yamaha FZ07. Top speed isn’t everything because Curtis Murray hit 136.843 mph but had one of the fastest laps on the race. Michael Barnes had the fastest lap of the race hit 135.751mph. Don’t get caught up on MPH because the fastest three riders didn’t touch the 140mph mark.

Moving forward, I would like to see less DNF/DNS. On to Road America!

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