Wampum, PA – August 14, 2021 –

Westby Racing’s Superbike rider Mathew Scholtz is making quite a habit of standing on the podium during the 2021 MotoAmerica Championship. On Saturday at Pittsburgh International Race Complex, Mathew recorded not only his ninth podium result of the season, but it was also his fifth top-three finish in a row. What’s more, he has only finished outside the top five in one of the 13th races thus far. That’s consistency.

 

Saturday’s third-place finish was also the result of toughness and determination as Mathew withstood the physicality of fighting for track position. Undeterred by the incidents, Mathew stayed in the race, maintained his position, and completed an all-Yamaha podium.

 

“I got off to a pretty decent start,” Mathew said. “I was behind Jake (Gagne). I was thinking about diving him, but in corner one the outside of the track comes up quickly. So, if you kind of over-try to slide there, you’ll end up running off. So, I was a little bit worried about that. I was going to try to maybe slipstream Jake and get him up into corner three, but Toni (Elias) passed us, and I had to check up slightly. I kind of just thought from there, let me tag onto these boys. They had a pretty decent pace. Going from corner three into corner four, (Loris) Baz T-boned me. We both lost time. Out of the seat going down into corner five again I broke so late. Got to the apex, knee on the floor. The guy just kind of T-boned me a little bit. Kind of shuffled me back. I kind of caught up to Cameron (Petersen) and chilled with him for a couple of laps then managed to pass Cam, I forget which corner. I could see Toni was a couple seconds up, and I really thought I was going to catch him, but it just seemed that if I pushed harder, I just kept on getting kicked out of the seat, almost losing the front. We have to go back and try to figure out why I wasn’t able to drop down to those practice times.

 

“Otherwise, I’m pretty happy to be back up here. It’s nice to obviously gain points in the championship over the guys in third, which is positive for us, but I’m not really too happy because we weren’t doing the lap times that we should have been, and it was just a difficult race. But overall, I’m taking the positives and looking forward to the second race.”

 

Ed Sullivan, Westby Racing Crew Chief said, “While today’s race was a bit disappointing, especially considering how close we were during practice and qualifying, we have to look at the big picture and take the positives. We were on the box, and we scored solid points in the championship. We have work to do tonight, but I am confident that Mathew will come back even stronger tomorrow.”

 

Chuck Giacchetto, Westby Racing Team Manager, added, “We certainly had an exciting opening lap in race one today, and hungry riders all fighting for position makes it even more exciting. That being said, I feel that tomorrow’s race will suit Mathew and his R1 Superbike even better. And, even though they finished P3 today, Mathew and the team are even more motivated to make their mark in race two. I would encourage the fans to watch the action any way they can because I promise it will be a barn-burner.”

 

Sunday’s Superbike race two is at 2 p.m. ET and will be broadcast live on FOX Sports 1 (FS1), as well as streamed on MotoAmerica Live+.