Saturday of the fourth meeting of the championship MotoAmerica King of the Baggers 2025 at Laguna Seca included the second qualifier, the challenge and the first race.
The day before, at the end of a somewhat atypical qualifying session, Kyle Wyman (Harley-Davidson x Dynojet Factory Racing) had set the reference at 1'28.057 in Monterey, a time to the thousandth of a second equal to that achieved by Hayden Gillim (RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley Davidson) during the first practice session, while Loris Baz (S&S/Indian Motorcycle) was placed 3rd.
This morning, during the second qualification, Kyle Wyman pushed the cork a little further, while Loris Baz, who set off at a hellish pace, lost the front of his machine at the entrance to the Corkscrew.
Asked whether his little jaunt into the gravel would still allow him to participate in the Challenge, Loris Baz replied: “Well, I don’t know, it depends on my mechanics, you know… I don’t make it easy for them, but that’s what you get when you do qualifying right before the Challenge. This year, in Q2, it never went very well because I was thinking too much about not crashing so I could participate in the Challenge. And this morning, I told myself that I wanted to give everything in this Q2, I felt that I had a good opportunity to go faster than yesterday. And yes, I was on a good lap, I just made a small mistake: when I grabbed the brake in the Corkscrew, I locked up and I came too fast in the left. But hey, it’s a crash… I picked the bike up at the bottom of the Corkscrew drop, and everyone was cheering for me there, so that was nice. But I’m pretty happy with the work we’re doing this week after a tough race at Road America. I feel good on my Indian and the whole team is doing a good job.” But yes, it seems that we still have to take a small step forward for the races.
In the combined classification of the two sessions, the Frenchman will still start 4th.
The Challenge is played over 3 rounds for the 6 fastest and allows the winner to pocket $5000.
They will go into the pocket of Kyle Wyman, imperial, while Hayden Gillim does not participate,
Tyler O'Hara misses, and that Loris Baz finished 2th.
The first race then starts for 9 laps after Rocco Landers makes an unusual appearance on the starting grid...
Immediately after the red lights go out,
Tyler O'Hara raises his hand because his Indian is not working properly.
On the track, we find in order Hayden Gillim, Kyle Wyman, Loris Baz, Troy Herfoss and Bradley Smith.
On the second lap, the leading drivers raise their hands to signal that the leader is losing oil. The red flag is unfurled.
On resumption, Tyler O'Hara raises his hand again during the warm-up lap. Definitely...
At the beginning, Kyle Wyman keeps the lead in front Loris Baz which is off to a great start. Troy Herfoss, Rocco Landers and Bradley Smith follow.
In the 2st round, Kyle Wyman et Loris Baz begin to escape with Troy Herfoss who tries to follow.
But nothing to do, Kyle Wyman is the fastest and manages to gain a few lengths ahead of the Indian Challenger duo.
2 laps from the checkered flag, Rocco Landers
starts to put pressure on Troy Herfoss and attempts an attack in the last one.
To counter it, the Australian passes Loris Baz at the entrance to the Corkscrew but is too wide and miraculously returns to the track without hitting anyone...
Loris Baz : “Yeah, yeah. It was a strange day, you know… This morning I crashed in Q2 and my mechanics did an amazing job rebuilding the bike in 10 minutes for the Challenge. Then, yeah, I felt good all weekend, but we lost a lot of time in FP1, so we had to make up for it after that. But I felt really good on the Indian and S&S did a great job setting up the bike this weekend.
But yeah, we were a little slower than Kyle, he had a great race. I really tried, but in some places, I was seriously lacking grip, and he was able to get away. I knew Troy was behind, and coming into the Corkscrew, there was a lot of oil, it was difficult to brake hard there, but he still pushed really hard. Before the race, he told me: “I’m too old, I’m 38, I’m going to have to retire soon,” but he still makes some great passes for a 38-year-old guy! So give me a little margin!
Thanks to the whole team, the whole Indian crew, S&S: it was a great show. Everyone had a great time. I always love being at Laguna Seca. It's an amazing place, so I really had a great time coming here on my road trip, and now I really enjoy racing there."
The program continues this evening, with the second race, just after midnight.
MotoAmerica Laguna Seca J2 MotoAmerica Laguna Seca J2
