Brandon Paasch Finishes 4th in the 100th Loudon Classic
Loudon, NH. – Competing in his first professional road race since sustaining a compression fracture of his L3 vertebrae in a training accident on March 30, 2023, Brandon Paasch placed fourth in a crash-riddled 100th Loudon Classic presented by NEMMR. The race was restarted multiple times in wet conditions then eventually called complete after the ninth restart. Paasch was awarded the position he was running in on lap 19 of the race.
Riding a Yamaha YZF-R6 on Pirelli tires prepared by Rodio Racing, Brandon placed 21st fastest in the Friday morning practice on a dry track about four seconds behind the fastest time. In the first qualifying session on Friday afternoon he was able to advance to 11th place with a time of 1:11.736, 1.062 seconds off the top qualifier. After overnight rain, in final qualifying on Saturday Paasch recorded the ninth-fastest time on a wet track, placing him 11th on the grid for the race among the final 32 qualifiers.
Saturday afternoon’s race started in wet conditions with occasional light rain with the race interrupted multiple times by red flags due to crashes. On each restart Brandon was able to advance through the field, even leading the race by a comfortable margin at one point. Although the race was scheduled to finish only on a checkered flag it was finally called before the 10th restart was made.
Brandon Paasch: “Well… I won’t be able to sit down for the next month! P4 in the end, not bad for our first outing since breaking my back three months ago. Loads of people to thank for this last minute effort. Cheers for all the support!!!”
Brandon took home $17,000 of the $250,000 purse for his efforts.
Rodio Racing thanks Pirelli for the fantastic tires, Skip Dowling and Rob Silva at K-Tech USA for suspension support, Anthony Corbo of Bauce Racing for the tune, and Phillip Bailey and Ryne Snooks for their massive help putting this effort together.
