Team Suzuki Press Office – August 4.
Sean Dylan Kelly: GSX-R600 – 1-2 (Supersport class)
Toni Elias: GSX-R1000 – 4-5 (Superbike class)
Bobby Fong: GSX-R1000 – 5-4 (Superbike class)
M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider Sean Dylan Kelly raced his GSX-R600 to a spectacular victory and a second place at the weekend’s third round of the MotoAmerica AMA/ FIM North American Road Racing Championship at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, USA.
The 18 year old stormed to victory on Saturday with an astonishing final corner move and came back in Sunday’s second race to secure a runner-up finish, giving him five consecutive first-or-second-placed finishes in the revised series.
Said Kelly: “We definitely made a good step up this weekend. We’re going in the right direction overall, and we got our first win of the season this weekend. We still have things to work on, but we’ve just got to keep fighting like this. I need to give a huge thank you to the whole M4 ECSTAR Suzuki team for all their hard work.”
The M4 ECSTAR Suzuki Superbike squad scored a pair of top-five finishes in both premier-class races with Toni Elias finishing fourth to Bobby Fong’s fifth on Saturday and the two riders trading positions on Sunday.
Fong arguably enjoyed the more memorable weekend of the two. The reigning MotoAmerica Supersport Champion came into the weekend riding high after claiming his maiden Superbike win at the previous round. However, his hopes of repeating that feat took a huge hit when he crashed at high speed in Saturday morning’s free practice. Despite feeling the effects of that fall throughout the weekend, he finished fifth on Saturday and even challenged for the podium throughout Sunday’s rematch before accepting a hard-earned fourth.
In other classes, the team’s other talented 18-year-old, Alex Dumas, enjoyed a breakthrough weekend of his own. The 2018 Junior Cup and 2019 Twins Cup champion has instantly proven himself a legitimate contender on a big-bore race bike in 2020. The French Canadian’s continual improvement has seen him go from a seventh-place finish in his Stock 1000 debut, to a fourth in the follow-up, and a maiden podium finish with Saturday’s third, and finally a runner-up finish on Sunday in his latest and most convincing statement performance to date.
Dumas, who led the opening three laps on Sunday and finished just 1.166 seconds short of victory on Sunday, said, “I had a really good start. By the end I had a little bit of brake fade, and I know everybody suffers from it around here. It was playing with my mind a little bit, so I just focused on doing some good laps to finish strong. We had a really good weekend and keep getting closer to the win. I’m really looking forward to next weekend.”
Up-and-comer Lucas Silva continued his steady ways, upping his perfect season streak of Supersport top 10s with two runs to sixth on the weekend.
The 2020 MotoAmerica Championship continues next weekend at Pittsburgh International Race Complex at Wampum, Pennsylvania for Round 4 on August 7-9th.
