While Team Aprilia Rip it energy fuel racing has pretty much owned the top spot of the AMA PPG Supermoto Unlimited podium this season thanks to the signing of reigning class champion Ben Carlson away from rival manufacturer KTM, team boss Darryl Atkins finally got in on the fun himself at the Deshutes County Expo Center in Redmond, OR. This being the second season riding the Italian manufacturer’s twin-cylinder SXV550, the gritty New Zealander broke through to claim his first-career AMA triumph on Saturday night.
Atkins took maximum advantage of a hectic first lap, taking control of the race when other riders got caught up in an opening corner pile up.
Atkins led every lap and pulled away to get the win with a 5.9 -second margin of victory. The excited New Zealander remarked, “This track was great, I just did what I needed to keep increasing the gap over the rest of the field. Today went really well for me, 1st in our Qualifying group, 1st in the heat and 1st in the final.
Carlson went down on the first lap and rode from 12th to 5th in the 10 lap race. “ I just lost the front end going into a right hand turn, the track temperature changed a lot from the heats to the final as the sun started to set. I was happy to be able to come back and get some good points to keep my championship lead healthy”
Immediately after the Unlimited final Carlson jumped on his 450 and rode from 12th to 7th in the 15 lap final event. Both riders were quick to Thank the rest of the Team (Amauri Nunes, John Weiss & Todd Carlson), knowing all their hard work is making these results possible. Carlson will look to bounce back to his winning ways while Atkins will hope to add a second career win when the series picks back up in a little over a month in
Finally good results for the Aprilia MX team
It was a new formation for Team Aprilia Off Road on the track at San Severino Marche (MC) in the 5th round of the Italian International Motocross, the penultimate race of the season. At Chicco Chiodi's side was Luigi Seguy who, after a season as an Enduro rider, is once again an official Aprilia captain, collaborating closely with technicians and engineers who are developing the cross, enduro, and supermotard twins. Seguy thus returned to dispute a motocross race (where he spent over ten years of his glorious career) atop Cedric Melotte's official MXV 4.5 as the rider recovers from reconstructive surgery of the ligaments in his right knee.
Saturday's qualifying rounds showed Chiodi to be in good shape with the 4th-best time in the MX1 while Seguy, distracted by a setting problem, clocked the 12th-best time. In the first manche, Seguy took off hard. The Frenchman reared the engine and hit the gear shift against the wicked gate, irreversibly damaging the MXV 4.5's gear shift. It was instead a normal race, for Chiodi who closed out in 7th place.
The start of Race 2 was great as an excited Seguy took off hot on David Philippaerts' trail (Ktm), racing three laps in his wake before losing strength and falling back to 5th place. Taking advantage were Alex Salvini (Yamaha) and Choidi, who closed out the fraction in 3rd place in a manche that saw two Aprilia twins in the top five places.
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