Paul Carruthers | April 16, 2016
While the Superbike riders spent Saturday qualifying, the Supersport, Superstock 600 and KTM RC Cup racers spent their day racing. And nobody impressed more than Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha’s Garrett Gerloff, the Texan putting his Yamaha R6 on pole position and then dominating the race for his second successive win.
“I think it’s just been a combination of a lot of things,” Gerloff said in explaining the differences between 2015 and his perfect-thus-far 2016. “There’s been a lot of changes that have happened over the off-season in my personal life and also my training and things like that. I really feel more planted in everything I do and it’s given me a lot of confidence in my racing. I think I’ve been missing some stability and everything off the track, but that’s been a huge thing for me and helps me just relax out here and have fun. That’s what I was doing out there today. It was a tough race. JD (Beach) and Valentin (Debise) were riding really well and I was just lucky enough to put in some good laps and pull away a little bit at a time and get through the traffic pretty easy. I’m happy with the result and it does feel good to see everything paying off. It’s not going to be an easy year and every day is a new day.”
Gerloff beat M4 Sportbike TrackGear.com Suzuki’s Valentin Debise, who was making his Road Atlanta debut, by 10.557 seconds after 20 laps of the 2.54-mile Road Atlanta rode course. Defending class champion JD Beach bounced back from a near-crash early in the race to finish third on his Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha R6.
Fourth place went to M4 Sportbike TrackGear.com Suzuki’s Cam Petersen, the South African beating Wheels In Motion/Motosport.com/Meen Motorsports’ Joe Roberts to the flag by just .167 of a second.
The Superstock 600 win went to Tuned Racing’s Bryce Prince, the Californian finishing sixth overall after a titanic battle for the majority of the race. For Prince it was his second career win in the class, matching his effort from last year’s season finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
“It was a really exciting race and there was a group of probably five of us and one of the Supersport guys as well going back at it,” Prince said. “I can’t remember how many times I’d go from fifth to first lap after lap doing down the backstraight. People started falling down when we hit traffic. I made a couple of last-minute passes on some people and used the traffic to my advantage. It was definitely a good race, a tough race, and I can’t thank my team and all the people supporting me enough.”
Dakota Mamola, who made his MotoAmerica debut last week in the Supersport class at COTA, raced to second in what was the opening round of the Superstock 600 class on his HB Racing/Meen Yamaha. JC Camacho rode his Altus Motorsports Yamaha to third in the Superstock 600 class.
The KTM RC Cup also made its season debut at Road Atlanta today with Jimmy Winters Racing’s Anthony Mazziotto III taking the win over AXcess Racing’s Brandon Paasch by 1.315 seconds. Mazziotto won last year’s season finale in the class and is the only returning race winner in the 2016 series. Brandon Altmeyer was third on the Altmeyer Racing KTM RC 390.
“I broke my ankle a month ago doing silly things, but we don’t have to talk about that,” said Mazziotto. “This race was definitely a great race. I came off the launch and my bike stood straight up 12 o’clock and something happened in the gearbox. I was grabbing my upshifts going up the hill and went to grab a downshift going into the chicane and the shifter wouldn’t move. It was stuck in sixth gear all the way to turn seven when I finally kicked the thing and it went. I fought back from ninth place. The race was really hectic.”
Jody Barry Racing’s Jody Barry and NCR Development’s Brett Voorhees rounded out the top five.
Racing action in the Suzuki Superbike Shootout of Georgia continues tomorrow at Road Atlanta. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.motoamerica.com.
SUPERSPORT RACE 1: 1. Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha); 2. Valentin Debise (Suzuki); 3. JD Beach (Yamaha); 4. Cameron Petersen (Suzuki); 5. Joe Roberts (Yamaha); 6. Bryce Prince (Yamaha); 7. Dakota Mamola (Yamaha); 8. Christian Crosslin (Suzuki); 9. JC Camacho (Yamaha); 10. Andy DiBrino (Yamaha).
SUPERSTOCK 600 RACE 1: 1. Bryce Prince (Yamaha); 2. Dakota Mamola (Yamaha); 3. JC Camacho (Yamaha); 4. Andy DiBrino (Yamaha); 5. Conner Blevins (Kawasaki); 6. Travis Wyman (Yamaha); 7. Gage McAllister (Yamaha); 8. Jason Aguilar (Yamaha); 9. Deion Campbell (Yamaha); 10. Michael Gilbert (Yamaha).
KTM RC CUP RACE 1: 1. Anthony Mazziotto III; 2. Brandon Paasch; 3. Brandon Altmeyer; 4. Alejandro Gutierrez; 5. Jody Barry; 6. Brett Voorhees; 7. Cory Ventura; 8. Josh Serne; 9. Jackson Blackmon; 10. Benjamin Smith.