Elkhart Lake, WI – June 3, 2018 –

Road America is the first U.S. track where South African Mathew Scholtz raced when he came to America two years ago. Last year, he won Sunday’s Superstock 1000 race at “America’s National Park of Speed.” For those reasons and many others, Mathew loves Road America and considers it one of his favorite tracks on the MotoAmerica schedule.

 

But, sometimes, as that old song by the 70s band Nazareth sang, “Love Hurts.” It hurt on Saturday, and then, it hurt a little more on Sunday for Mathew and the Yamalube/Westby Racing team.

 

After suffering a lowside in Saturday’s Superbike Race 1, which resulted in an uncharacteristic 14th-place finish for the 2017 MotoAmerica Superstock Champion and two-time Superbike race winner, Mathew and the team went into Sunday with a solid plan to improve on their results from Saturday and return to the level of success that had Mathew in second place in the Championship points standings heading into the weekend.

 

But, in a cruel twist of fate, things went from not-so-good to something even less than not-so-good when Mathew crashed on Lap 2 of Sunday’s race, which resulted in a red-flag stoppage due to Mathew’s #11 Yamalube/Westby Racing/Yamaha YZF-R1 coming to rest on the racing line. After gathering himself, Mathew remounted his bike, but quickly found that it was too damaged to continue. The race was restarted, but without Mathew, unfortunately, and his weekend concluded with only two points earned, which moved him from second place down to fourth place in the Championship standings.

 

“Dunlop introduced a new rear tire at Road America,” Mathew commented. “It’s the one we had at the preseason test at Barber, but we didn’t get a lot of laps on it at that test, and we kind of knew going into this weekend that we wouldn’t be up to speed right off the bat. We were chipping away trying to get the bike set up for the new tire, and we’re really happy with the progress we made. In Saturday’s race, I didn’t get a great start off the line, so I was trying to make up time. I pushed too hard, lost the front, and lowsided. I was able to get back on the bike, and I managed to salvage a couple of Championship points. Overnight, we made some pretty drastic changes to the bike. In the Sunday morning warmup, some of the changes worked, but some of them didn’t. So, going into the second race, we weren’t sure about our consistency. Again, I just pushed too hard, and this time, I lost the rear of the bike and highsided out of the race. Today was 100% on me, and I really have to say sorry to my team. They worked really hard, and we made a lot of progress this weekend. I really feel like I let them down. We are going to try to test the new tire before we go to (WeatherTech Raceway) Laguna (Seca) for the next round. Laguna really suits our bike and the way I ride, so we’re looking to return to form.”

 

Round 5 of the 2018 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship will take place on June 22 through 24 in Monterey, California, as MotoAmerica joins the FIM World Superbike Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

 

MotoAmerica Superbike Standings

1. Cameron Beaubier – Yamaha – 153

2. Toni Elias – Suzuki – 151

3. Josh Herrin – Yamaha – 115

4. Mathew Scholtz – Yamaha – 105

5. Jake Lewis – Suzuki – 77

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