Indy MotoGP: James Rispoli’s Moto2 Debut Session
Paul Carruthers | August 16, 2013
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LARRY LAWRENCE
INDIANAPOLIS, IN, AUG. 16 – James Rispoli’s debut practice session in the Moto2 class was somewhat of a nightmare as he suffered with an over-geared motorcycle that vibrated badly on downshifts thanks to a badly set-up slipper clutch. Other than that… Unfortunately, the end result for the AMA Daytona SportBike regular was a best lap that was almost a second off his best from a recent test with the GP Tech Team at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the 31st fastest time of the first session.
“The clutch is a big issue because it shakes the whole chassis all the way into the corner so I can’t even go in as deep as them because I shake all the way past the apex,” Rispoli said. “By the time I get on the gas, it’s over. It just kills the lap time because I have no corner speed with it because I can’t go in and just making it up on the gas is stupid. That wasn’t a good showing of anything. The next session will be better. They are going to go talk to the boys and get the clutch figured out, which will be the biggest thing. We’ll probably get some good lap times in then. It is what is and we’re monkeying around and there’s a lot of little stuff that you’re going to run into as a wild card and not running the entire series.”
Rispoli’s best lap this morning was a 1:49.452 – 4.9 seconds off session leader Takaaki Nakagami, the Italtrans Racing team rider. Nakagami’s Kalex-framed Honda also recorded a trap speed of 175 mph to the best trap speed of 165 mph for Rispoli.
Paul Carruthers | Editor
Paul Carruthers took over as the editor of Cycle News in 1993 after serving as associate editor since starting his career at the publication in 1985. Carruthers has covered every facet of the sport in his near-28-year tenure at America's Daily Motorcycle News Source.
