The Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course made a long awaited, perhaps surprising appearance with MotoAmerica, after a decade of absence from national motorcycle series competition. Only a handful of current MotoAmerica riders (or perhaps less) have ever raced on the narrow and technical, twisty 3.862mile Midwest racetrack, which has a long history of two- and four-wheeled racing dating back to 1962.
It is of no surprise then that there was a welcome reception for the fans and the locals, who flocked to the venue for a weekend of racing (and camping, as the course is famous for excellent camper facilities with great views and plentiful shade) with friends and family alike. Given their relatively short history in racing, neither Energica nor team Tytlers Cycle Racing had ever turned wheels at this circuit, so it was a bit of a step into the unknown.
Nevertheless, the team’s only rider for the Super Hooligan National Championship, Stefano Mesa, had a chance to get to grips with the track on Thursday, albeit on TCR’s Supersport machine, before jumping on the powerful Eva Ribelle RS KCC to begin the penultimate event of the season.
The results went as follows: Mesa was tenth in qualifying, eighth in Race One and then tenth again in Race Two. As much as these results mirror in many ways those achieved in Laguna Seca five weeks prior, the gap to the frontrunners is getting slimmer, albeit not enough to get in the mix – not this at least – for podium contention.
When a new track arrives with no prior testing, set-up and feeling have to be built as the weekend progresses, with very little room for experimentation. If we throw in the notorious unpredictability of Midwestern summer weather, chances are that track-time will be further reduced. Which it happened, of course, as due to torrential rain Qualifying 2 was really of no use, causing the Sunday warmup to be replaced by Race One as the latter had to be postponed due the impracticability of the track.
In what was a race for adaptation, the Eva Ribelle RS KCC proved to be more than capable of solid performance throughout, with top speed matching the frontrunners and Mesa able to improve by one second his fastest race time across the two encounters (which ended up being separated by merely two hours).
By quoting a classic of the movie industry: ‘It could be worse, it could be raining’. Luckily it didn’t happen today, so we did get to race.
Time to pack and get ready for the Circuit of The Americas. (September 13-15).
