Page 49 - ISSUE2GRIDFINAL

BENNYSOLISJR.
SUPERSPORT
The start of the weekend at Road Atlanta continued in the same vein for the Californian as he was one of the first riders to bridge the
gap between the top three and the rest of the field. Solis Jr. kept his head down throughout practice and qualifying, eventually clocking
a 1:29.227, only a couple of tenths behind JD Beach’s qualifying effort. As the only Honda rider in the entire field, it was another
impressive effort from the young Californian to lead the second row of the grid for another week in succession.
As the lights went out on the first race, Solis Jr. maintained the outside down the start straight and around the first corner, establishing himself in fourth position
as the race got underway. The top three broke away at the front of the field and the Honda rider led the rest of the pack, closely followed by last year’s KTM RC390 Champion, Brandon Paasch. The race was halted due to a red flag situation as ‘Benito’ began to build a gap and the situation repeated itself, but a couple of laps into the restart Solis Jr. was promoted to third position as a result of a mistake by JD Beach. He put his head down and turned consistent laps on his CBR600, but Beach made up enough time in order to catch him in the final stages of the race, forcing him back to fourth position where he would eventually finish with a sizable advantage ahead of fifth. The second race broke down the same way as the first, Solis Jr. found himself in a heated battle with Brandon Paasch throughout the opening portion of the eighteen lapper. The sixteen year old on the Suzuki stormed into the first corner and stole the advantage away from the Honda rider, but it only took one lap for Solis Jr. to regain the position. The two of them matched each other’s lap times for
the entirety of the race as they remained within one second of each other with each passing lap. In the final third of the race, the battle began to heat up as Paasch made a lunge for fourth position, momentarily claiming the spot until a couple of laps later when Solis Jr. struck back. The two of them duked it out all the way until the checkered flag, but the rookie ended up maintaining the advantage at the line by just three tenths of a second, demoting ‘Benito’ to fifth place.
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