LEEDS, Ala. — Strack Racing’s Mathew Scholtz started the defense of his 2025 Motovation Supersport Championship in perfect fashion on a sunny Saturday at Barber Motorsports Park.
He led every session, put his brand-new Yamaha YZF-R9 on pole position, and stormed to victory in the opening round of the series.
Scholtz topped Rahal Ducati Moto w/XPEL’s PJ Jacobsen, his championship rival from last year, by 2.9 seconds in the red-flag-shortened 18-lap race with the New Yorker not able to quite match the pace of the South African.
Scholtz’s teammate Blake Davis was an impressive third with the 18-year-old only five seconds behind his race-winning teammate and almost 10 seconds ahead of Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Tyler Scott.
Scott, meanwhile, was busy fighting off Rahal Ducati Moto w/XPEL’s Kayla Yaakov, who in turn was just marginally ahead of her Rahal Ducati Moto w/Roller Die’s Corey Alexander.
Celtic/Economy Lube+Tire/Warhorse HSBK Ducati’s Cameron Petersen muffed the start but fought through to fourth only to suffer from brake fade. The South African soldiered on to finish seventh.
Warhorse Ducati/American Racing’s Alessandro Di Mario made Saturday’s Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul his own, leading 99 percent of the race to win by 6.5 seconds at Barber Motorsports Park.
Although Yamaha bLU cRU Estenson Racing’s Sam Drane nabbed the holeshot into turn one, Di Mario wasted little time in getting to the front. Once he was there, he never faltered, taking the win by 6.5 seconds.
The battle for second went to the bitter end. Initially, it was three fighting for the spot but CTR/D&D Cycles’ Bodie Page, the winner of race two at Circuit of The Americas last weekend, crashed out of the battle. The Aussie, however, remounted and fought his way through to score valuable eighth-place points.
That left Drane and Tytler’s Cycle Racing’s Hank Vossberg fighting for the runner-up spot, with Drane winning the battle by just .076 of a second. It was Drane’s best finish of the early season after he posted two third-place finishes in the opening round in Texas.
Vossberg’s third-place finish was his best of the year and his first podium finish in the new class.
A day after walking away uninjured from a big crash, Bad Boys Racing’s Avery Dreher ran down race-long leader Alessandro Di Mario to earn his first win of the season and his second-career SC-Project Twins Cup victory.
This one looked to be a Di Mario romp as the fast qualifier took off from the pack to earn what appeared to be a comfortable victory. But with his grip level fading quickly, the Robem Engineering Aprilia RS 660-mounted Di Mario was a sitting duck as Dreher carved his way through traffic to get to the back of Di Mario with just a lap to go. And then he made his pass, crossing the finish line just .058 of a second ahead of the defending Twins Cup Champion.
Third place went to RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki’s Matthew Chapin, who came out on top of a fight with Speeddemon Racing’s Logan Cunnison by .048 of a second. Chapin’s third-place finish was his third straight podium finish after his two victories in the season opener at Daytona.
It wasn’t as dominant as most of Mikayla Moore’s victories in the Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race. series the past two years, but Kira Knebel’s victory on Saturday at Barber Motorsports Park shows the rest of the pack that they have a bit of work to do to keep pace.
Knebel, who finished third to Moore and Camille Conrad in last year’s title chase, bested Shea MacGregor by 6.7 seconds. Despite being beaten, MacGregor’s speed has improved greatly as her best result a season ago was sixth place en route to finishing seventh in the championship.
Knebel had this one in hand from the beginning, turning a best lap of 1:47.041 to win the opening round of the championship.
Conrad opened her second season in the class with a third-place finish, 4.7 seconds adrift of MacGregor.
