Third Supersport podium of the season for Jason Aguilar at Barber Motorsports Park

Jason Aguilar put the disappointment of the previous round of the 2020 MotoAmerica Supersport series behind him, bouncing back at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama with a superb third and fourth place finish on Saturday and Sunday.

Front running from the off, Aguilar qualified a solid fourth, before racing to his third podium finish of the season in the weekend’s opening encounter. He rounded off the event, that saw him return to form, with a hard fought fourth yesterday to consolidate his P4 in the overall championship standings with just two rounds, Indianapolis, and Laguna Seca, remaining.

Jason Aguilar:
“The opening Qualifying session went well. I was sitting P1/P2 for most of it, but I just got pipped by Richie and Sean at the end, so I ended third. We were making good progress every time we went out, not really changing much on the bike and I was feeling really comfortable. The bike has been great all year, it’s been a lack of seat time, so this weekend the plan was to let me ride and do my thing. It seemed to work. I felt that we had pace and I was looking forward to final qualifying and the two races. Qualifying 2 didn’t really go my way. I didn’t execute our planned strategy correctly and it definitely hurt us. Fortunately, our time from Q1 stood to put me 4th but we lost our front row start which I was really pissed about. I just worked to channel that energy into the race later in the day though. Race 1 went pretty well for us. I got off to a good start but made a mistake in Turn 2 and let another rider get around me. I made my way back around him at the end of the first lap and had my sights set on Brandon (Paasch). I was able to pass him in the last corner on lap 6 and slowly pulled a gap on him. I was pushing really hard to see if I could catch Sean (Dylan Kelly) but on lap 13 I really felt my rear tyre starting to go off. It was getting really sketchy out there, but I saw I had a good gap to Brandon behind me, so I eased the pace and brought it home in third. Race 2 was disappointing to say the least. We just didn’t have some things go our way, but that’s racing. I got a great start but wasn’t aggressive enough at the start and got shuffled back early on. Once I made my way into 4th it was too late to catch anyone for the podium. Definitely not how I wanted race 2 but we just gotta keep on working and we’ll get there. I’m happy to be up on podium again but I want more. See you all at Indianapolis.”

Photo courtesy of Brian J. Nelson