The first two days of the three-day MotoAmerica race weekend at Brainerd International Raceway have been rough ones for Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz, but he showed his toughness while the team used their experience and determination, which resulted in a fourth-place finish in Saturday’s Superbike race one.

In Friday’s first practice session, Mathew suffered a crash that bruised his shoulder. The team rebuilt the #11 Westby Racing Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike, and Mathew managed to provisionally qualify fourth. And then, in Saturday morning’s final qualifying, he unfortunately crashed again, injuring his wrist along with exacerbating his shoulder injury.

Despite the two incidents, Mathew hung onto his fourth-place grid position and started the afternoon’s race one from the inside of the second row. Getting a good jump off the line, Mathew focused on maintaining his position and managed to do so for the entire 18-lap race. And, while his injuries prevented him from overtaking the three riders ahead of him, he did a great job keeping the rest of the field behind him.

Fourth place obviously wasn’t the result that Mathew and the Westby Racing team expected coming into the weekend, but the rider and team withstood the adversity and performed admirably.

“It’s been a difficult weekend for us,” Mathew said. “I’m not at 100% physically, and I’ve caused a lot of extra work for the team. Today’s race felt more like a game of survival. Finishing fourth isn’t something that I’m too happy about, but on the other hand I’m thankful that we were at least able to salvage fourth. Tomorrow will be another tough race, but we will do the best we can. I know the team will, and I owe it to them to give my maximum effort despite my physical condition.”

Sunday’s Superbike race two starts at 3:10 p.m. CT and will be broadcast on Fox Sports 2 (FS2) Sunday night at 7 p.m. ET.

For all the action from Brainerd International Raceway, as it happens, subscribe to MotoAmerica Live+, which is MotoAmerica’s live streaming and on-demand service. To find out more about how to watch MotoAmerica, click HERE

Meet Mathew, Get An Autographed Poster, And More

Mathew will be available for autographs during the Dunlop Hot Pit Walk & Autograph Session, scheduled for 11 to 11:40 a.m. Sunday on pit lane at BIR. He and the team will be handing out free posters and T-shirts, so don’t miss it.

Check Out The Westby Racing Sponsor Showcase

NGK Spark Plugs USA, Inc. and RK Excel America Inc., are the featured team sponsors on display in the Westby Racing paddock area this race weekend, so be sure to stop by to say hello and learn about some of the companies that support the team.

For more updates about Westby Racing, including news, photos, and videos, visit http://www.WestbyRacing.co 

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