On a sweltering Saturday at VIRginia International Raceway, Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz notched his fourth second-place result out of the five races so far this season. His runner-up finish in Superbike race one moved him to within eight points of the MotoAmerica Championship lead.
Starting from the middle of the front row, Mathew dropped back one position to third and remained there for the first ten laps while he worked to close the gap on Danilo Petrucci in second. On lap 11, Mathew overtook Petrucci, maintained second place all the way to the checkered flag, and crossed the finish line just under three seconds back from race winner Jake Gagne.
“This morning, obviously, the lap times were a little bit quicker,” commented Mathew. “So, maybe I was just a little bit eager and tried to set up the bike more for those cooler conditions with less spinning. But, from the first lap out, I was getting that thing sideways, spinning up in every single corner, which kind of made my forearms swell up slightly. Not to sound like I’m moaning about a couple things, but it just was a very difficult race for me. Danilo (Petrucci), looking at the practices, I kind of knew that he only had a couple laps, and he would drop off, but he hung in there a lot longer than what I thought. I kind of closed up to Jake (Gagne) and Danilo slightly, but once he started dropping off and I kind of got caught up with him, Jake opened up.
“I got past Danilo and tried to catch up to Jake. I had a few pretty big moments spinning up, so I just had to settle for second. I thought it was going to be a pretty easy second, and then looking at the board I could see that somebody was catching me at a drastic pace. I thought it was Danilo maybe finding his groove again. Then, I looked back, and I had Cam (Petersen) chasing me down. From maybe lap eight to lap 16, I was pushing as hard as I could, but maybe the last four laps or so, Cam kind of dropped off slightly, which definitely helped me because I was on the limit there. I thought that we would have something for Jake today. Obviously, he still has something more. So, I just have to go back to the pits now and figure out how to get off the corners better without spinning so much. Overall, it’s really awesome to be up here with Jake and Cam. Really good, good friends. We’ve been through some things together, so it’s awesome.”
Mathew and the team will prepare for Superbike race two, which starts at 3:10 p.m. ET. The race will be broadcast on Fox Sports 2 (FS2) Sunday night at 10 p.m. ET.
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Meet Mathew, Get An Autographed Poster, And More
Mathew will be available for autographs during the Dunlop Hot Pit Walk & Autograph Session, scheduled for 11 to 11:30 a.m. Sunday on pit lane at VIR. He and the team will be handing out free posters and T-shirts, so don’t miss it.
Check Out The Westby Racing Sponsor Showcase
GBRacing and Capit Performance are the featured team sponsors on display in the Westby Racing paddock area this race weekend, so be sure to stop by to say hello and learn about some of the companies that support the team.
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