Page 50 - ISSUE2GRIDFINAL

The New Jersey native
continued to improve as
the action got underway at
the leaders throughout
practice.
Road Atlanta, inching closer and closer to the pace of
Paasch managed to qualify merely two sec-
onds off of his teammate’s pole position lap time, once again proving his rapid rate of improvement every time he hits the track. In the opening Supersport race
of the weekend, Paasch was able to stick with the CBR600 of Benny Solis Jr. throughout the early stages before an unfortunate incident brought on the red flag. Paasch managed to put in a similar performance in the shortened restart, but he slowly lost touch with the Californian throughout the second half of the race, eventually finishing approxi- mately five seconds back
in a lonely fifth position. >>
BRANDONPAASCH
Brandon Paasch had the privi- lege of racing the first round of the series with absolutely no expectations. The sixteen year old was making his Supers- port debut after winning the KTM RC390 Cup in dominant fashion last year, therefore encouraging his move to the 600cc machine with the well respected M4 Suzuki team. Although the New Jersey native had the pleasure of performing without expecta- tions at the opening round, it’s still possible that he may have exceeded them. After a mod- erately successful preseason test for the youngster where he was almost seven seconds off of the lead lap time, Paasch managed to cut three seconds off that disadvantage during the first qualifying session of the season on his way to a seventh place finish in the first race. >>
50 GRIDMOTO • MAY 2017
GRIDmoto