Canadian Braeden Ortt will race a Graves Kawasaki In the
2019 MotoAmerica Supersport Championship.
After riding a Graves-built Yamaha YZF-R6 to fifth in the
2017 MotoAmerica Superstock 600 Championship (with one win and four more podium
finishes) and to ninth in the 2018 MotoAmerica Supersport Championship (with
two podium finishes), Ortt said his first choice among his options for 2019 was
to continue working with Graves.
“I’ve been working on keeping a good relationship with them
and making sure I could give them as much valuable information as I can in
return for their services. And I’ve just been staying in touch,” 19-year-old Ortt
told Roadracingworld.com during a telephone interview in between his freshman
classes at the University of British Colombia – Okanagan. “Given that JD [Beach]
is not with them anymore and they’re making a big move to Kawasaki things just
really worked out. We’ve been making in known to Chuck [Graves] that we wanted
to be on his team, for sure. At the last minute things kind of came together.”
Ortt said the real clincher to the deal was when he got to
test a developmental version of a Graves-prepared 2019 Kawasaki ZX-6R earlier
this year.
“The bike was still in a primitive state of development by
Graves,” Ortt said. “Even in that state the bike was super, super rank, and I
loved it! That’s kind of why we made the decision. We realized that given how
little time Graves had to work on the Kawasaki in comparison to the Yamaha that
had a solid 10 years of development and we were blown aback by the thing. It
made our decision pretty easy. And they were pretty adamant about the room for
expansion, all of the tricks and whatnot they can do to the bike. All in all,
it made our decision pretty clear that the Kawasaki was the way to go.”
The Graves Kawasaki presence in the MotoAmerica paddock in
2019 will not be on the same level as the Graves Yamaha presence has been over
the last several years, according to Ortt. There will be no Graves Kawasaki
semi-truck in the MotoAmerica paddock, and instead Ortt will share space in the
paddock and a transporter with 2018 MotoAmerica Superstock 1000 Champion Andrew
Lee and his Franklin Armory/Graves Kawasaki ZX-10RR. However, Graves is
supplying Ortt’s crew chief, Marco Bonesso, and mechanic Jorge Artola.
In addition, Ortt and Lee will also race their Kawasakis in
all non-conflicting rounds of the 2019 AFM series.
Asked for his goals for the 2019 MotoAmerica season, Ortt
said, “I know I said this last year and I know everyone says this, but I firmly
believe that with this bike and the Graves team and everything that’s going on
this season I don’t want anything less than a Championship.”