Noyes On Podium Again

Cycle News Staff | May 27, 2012

The following is from Kenny Noyes’ publicist…

American Kenny Noyes struggled with chattering all weekend and went to grid for the third round of the Spanish National Moto2 Championship at Motorland, Aragon, knowing that his pace in practice and qualifying was barely good enough for a top-six finish. He started seventh but was fourth on the exit of turn 1 and managed to hang with the leaders over the opening laps. He had run in the mid-57s in qualifying, but managed to run the entire race in the 56s, improving his best time by .9 of a second.

The chattering was still there and was costing him, he estimates, a half second a lap through the faster section of the challenging 3.155 mile Grand Prix circuit. He had some lurid moments including one long slide, caught on Spanish TV, when he lost the front in the long, fast left-hander and managed to keep the bike upright with his knee. In spite of all this, he was able to close on second place finisher Ramón Ramos, cutting the gap from 2.5 seconds down to just a second at the flag.

Noyes is the only rider in the series to have been on the podium in all three races and now moves up to second in the points table, trailing winner Jordi Torres by 12 points. The PL Racing Team of Madrid, led by American George Vukmanovich, now has three weeks to sort out the Suter’s chattering problem before round 4 at the Circuit of Catalunya (Barcelona).

The CEV Moto2 series is considered one of the world’s top national championship, but it is truly international with riders from eight different nations in the top ten and riders from 13 countries entered.

Kenny Noyes: “This was really a tough weekend with problems that we began to have in Navarra. The team worked hard and made some progress, but on race day I knew I would have to try and ride around the chattering. I even ended up using the front brake during acceleration and with the bike leaned over hard and was short-shifting to take some corners in longer gears in order to settle the bike down. I knew I had to get a good start from the third row to try and get on the pace of the leaders. Coming out of here with a podium after a half hour on the limit really felt almost like a win, and in spite of all our problems, Jordi only took 5.9 seconds off of us.  We have quite a few things left to try and now the team has time for more testing so that we can be in a position to fight for a win in Catalunya.”