Shannonville, ON (May 30, 2017)- Tomas Casas, still flying high from his trip to Italy to cosy up to his hero Valentino Rossi, settled down to do the business of winning his first Pro national race.
Casas overcame a dysfunctional clutch on Saturday to qualify on the front row – he had to hand feed the clutch lever old-school style to overcome bad chatter while downshifting through the gears. His dad was very proud of his performance!
Overnight the crew found the problem and Tomas could not wait for Sunday’s practice session to check out the fix. Julio Casas (Papi) said it only took three laps to drop down into the 1:07-second range, and he led the timetable for the whole session.
Under perfect conditions, with the new Dunlop slicks mounted and suspension magic from Jon Cornwell, Tomas was ready for action! He virtually floated from his RV to his bike on the starting grid and promised to get a good start and do battle with that Kris Garvie fellah!
When the starting lights went out, Tomas and Kris went into corner one with Kris leading the way, and they stayed this way for 10 laps, Kris owning the Fabi back straight and Tomas owning the late braking arena.
But Tomas had been taking in Kris’s weak point, and after he passed Garvie behind the trees and out of the crowd’s view, the grandstand roared. Shannonville’s maestro was in second place and Tomas could now put into practice what he had noticed in the previous 10 laps together with his own braking prowess to show that he now owned the Fabi straight AND the late breaking arena.
Tomas went on to win comfortably with Kris Garvie second and Mitch Card third.
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