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Contributed by: Vagani Racing.
- ROUND 5 AMA NATIONALS, BUDDS CREEK, USA
As we have reported earlier, Ben Townley got called up for a one-off ride in the US Nationals to stand in for injured Grant Langston. The Drop Bear was set for a heavy schedule. He travelled overnight to Belgium after competing in the Austrian GP last weekend, and a few hours later he was on a plane bound for the US. Apart from the time zone adjustments, Ben had to familiarise himself with an entirely new environment, someone else’s bikes, and competitors that he had not raced against yet.
As expected, the young New Zealander easily skipped across the initial hurdles of pre-qualification and qualification, securing his spot in Sunday’s line-up.
Despite being unfamiliar with starting on concrete, Drop Bear got away fairly well, just outside of the top 10. It must have been a treat for US fans to witness Townley’s smooth style first hand, and he made the passes to take him into the top 10. By lap 6, he had worked himself into 5th spot, tagging onto fellow Antipodean Chad Reed who was plowing his way to the front.
As the race wound down, Ben slacked the pace off a little, and Brock Sellards and Branden Jesseman snuck past, relegating him to seventh spot. In the final stages of the race, Danny Smith had to retire due to mechanical problems, which booted the Drop Bear up one position, leaving him with a sixth spot finish in his first ever US National.
Ben’s nerves had settled somewhat after the first heat, and at the start of the second heat, he was in the top 10 straight away, and after lap one, he was the eighth rider to signal the transponder tower. He circulated in a closely-spaced group that included the 5th – to 8th –placed riders, and in the next few laps, he made up two spots to move into sixth spot. He had to yield to the advances of Chad Reed and Danny Smith, though, which dropped him back down to eighth spot. As the race neared completion, Ben was hounding Red Bull KTM factory rider Brock Sellards, and the proverbial gnat’s whisker separated the two KTM’s at the finish.
With two strong results, Ben finished seventh overall for the day, well within the confines of his goal to score a top 10 overall finish first time out. His one-off result now leaves him 27th in the US standings, which, we would hazard to say, is not shabby at all. It also makes Ben the rider with the highest combination world championship – and US championship standing.
