Greenwood, Doucette Repeat in LRRS Classes

Loudon Road Race Series completes final tune-up before Loudon Classic

NHMS PR Official Release

Middleweight Grand Prix

Scott Greenwood won the Middleweight Grand Prix “Dash for Cash” on Saturday to pick up his second win in as many races to begin the 2015 Loudon Road Race Series season. Greenwood has been the rider to beat in the class for quite some time, having won seven straight races dating back to June 2014.

He was challenged early by Eric Wood, swapping the lead on three separate occasions, before the race winner pulled away near the end of the first lap. After clearing Wood, it was smooth sailing for Greenwood, who went on to lead all 12 laps en route to the victory.

“From there, we sorted it out a little bit and I was able to run some clean laps and try to ride mistake-free,” Greenwood said about winning the early battle for the lead.

Wood finished second. The former class champion has been breaking in a new bike for the last several races and is more than ready to climb atop the podium after a year-long absence.

“It’s frustrating not to win, whatever the reason is. You want to win,” Wood said of his sixth consecutive second-place finish in the class.

“My machine can do it. I just need to figure out the combination to make it work,” Wood said of his chances in next month’s 92nd Loudon Classic.

Joel Allen finished third to earn his first podium finish in the class.

Lightweight Grand Prix

Elsewhere in the Loudon Road Race Series on Saturday, reigning overall champion Rick Doucette used a final lap pass to take the win from Scott Mullin in the Lightweight Grand Prix. Doucette also won the class in April and is known to stalk his competition, waiting for the appropriate time to pass for the lead.

“Sometimes it’s better to follow for awhile,” Doucette said of his strategy. “I don’t know if I’m holding back, but towards the end you get a little bit braver, I guess I would say.”

“He loves to haunt,” said Mullin of Doucette’s pass. “But it was a really fun race. We put down some really good lap times, and the track was actually pretty good.”

Mullin won the class championship last year, and the finish marked his third consecutive second-place dating back to his last win on Aug. 30, 2014.

Making the class a little more challenging this year is the addition of some Middleweight motorcycles that have been detuned to qualify for the Lightweight class.

“We took the crank out and got it de-stroked, and now the bike is a 555-cc bike,” said John Grush, who rides a Yamaha R5 in the class. “It produces an incredible amount of horsepower. It has all the attributes of an R6, but loses a little mid-range.”

These new motorcycles have some of the top competitors in the class talking. Doucette said he is opposed to the new rules that allowed them in the class because they are faster on the straightaways than anything else in the field. Mullin, meanwhile, admitted that if the rest of the field started racing them, he’d need to make the switch to stay competitive.

The Loudon Road Race Series will return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the Loudon Classic race weekend from June 19-21. The weekend is a part of Laconia Motorcycle Week in New Hampshire and will feature the 92nd Loudon Classic on the afternoon of Saturday, June 20. The event is the longest running motorcycle race in the country.