Newton Unbeatable With AGVSPORT America/MonkeyMoto At CMRA Opener
After announcing their signing of Jay Newton for the 2018 season, the AGVSPORT America/Monkey Moto team would arrive at the CMRA season opener Friday, February 11th, to begin their campaign for championships. It looked to be a dreary weekend according to the weather forecasters, and Motorsport Ranch Houston would get more than its fair share of wet and cold weather throughout the three day event. However, Newton would do his best to keep the team in high spirits.
Day one would be the CMRA organized practice, but Newton would get limited seat time on each of the three machines he would race the next two days due to the weather. Though only having minimal road race track time over the last two years, he was able to adapt quickly to each and post the fastest lap times on all bikes. The AGVSPORT America/MonkeyMoto team had bikes very close to perfect, and with minimal changes Newton would be satisfied and ready for the racing on Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday morning, the skies would drop buckets of rain and hamper the pre-sprint warm-up sessions. Newton would start out on a Kawasaki Ninja 250 and later switch to a Yamaha R3, both with full rain set ups. Again, he would be the fastest in practice on the Pirelli shod machines and declare himself ready to race. Jay’s first race would be aboard the little Ninja in the E Superstock class, and as the lights went out, he would rocket to the front and continue to build a healthy lead. Amassing confidence, Newton would win by over 11 seconds. Next up would be the Ultra Lightweight GP class on the Yamaha R3, and again he would take the lead and never surrender it, taking the checkers by over 9 seconds ahead of the rest of the field that included the 500 Superbike riders. For his last sprint of the day, he would remount the Ninja 250. This was to be a two wave start with the 500 Superstock and 500 Classic racers being in wave one. Though the wave start was too much to overcome for the overall win, Jay would take P3 in the combined class race and he would take the top honors in the E Superbike class by another large margin. With a small break to rest, the AGVSPORT America/MonkeyMoto big bike endurance team of Jay Newton and Cody Mecklenburg would ready themselves to saddle up the Kawasaki ZX-6R for a rain drenching 4 hour endurance. Mecklenburg would start for the team, but a couple of unfortunate incidents would cost the team valuable time in repairs to the bike prior to Newton going out for his first stint. They would fall to P12, but Newton would rally them back. As the day progressed, Mecklenburg took his turn for a second time, and maintained the team’s position. Newton would ride the anchor leg, and he would set a blistering pace and bring the team back up to P7 at the checkers and run the fastest lap of all teams by 4 seconds. Exhausted, he wanted nothing more than to rest and concentrate on the big bike sprints the next day.
Sunday morning would bring a new set of challenges for Jay. Though the rain had subsided and left nothing but a few spritz, temperatures had dropped into the low 40’s and a strong cross wind prevailed. It had dried the track well enough to run DOT’s or Slicks, but there were still weepers on several sections of the track. Newton adapted remarkably well, and produced the fastest lap time in warm up yet again. He would be in 4 races on Sunday aboard the ZX-6R, and would remain perfect the entire day. Jay would take the wins in C Superstock Expert, C Superbike Expert, B Superstock Expert, and B Superbike Expert. His smooth and consistent riding style would have him lead each race from flag to flag.
Not only did Newton have a perfect weekend, the AGVSPORT America/ MonkeyMoto rider posted the fastest lap time of the entire weekend. After going 7 for 7 at MSRH, the team looks forward to the next round of the CMRA season at NOLA Motorsports Park the weekend of March 9th. From there, Jay will head to the first race of the 2018 American Flat Track season, for the Daytona TT on March 15th.
To learn more about Jay Newton and advertising opportunities with the team, please view his website at the address below.
For more information about AGVSPORT America and sponsorship opportunities contact:
AGVSPORT America, LLC
Kevin Martin