On The Pegs March 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 3 | Page 59

On The Pegs
VOL. 5 ISSUE 3 - MARCH 2020
59
LAYNE MICHAEL
Layne Michael was one of a handful of riders making a switch to a new
team during the off-season, with Layne going to Yamaha to race for Randy
Hawkin’s Am Pro Yamaha team and factory mechanic Cory MacDonald. In his
first big race of the season, the North Carolina rider finished third overall in
the Kenda Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series opener in Gaston, South Carolina.
But, most impressively, Layne was the only rider other than Kailub Russell to
win a test, posting the fastest time in two of the tests. Layne might have fin-
ished second, but an issue with his brake pedal cost him a lot of time.
Saturday was going pretty good. I stayed pretty mistake-free all day. I was picking
up as the day went and I was feeling really good in the last test. Then, I didn’t know
what happened. I just kind of went against the bank and then I was on the ground.
I was pretty confused because I didn’t feel like I did anything wrong, but after look-
ing at the track I saw there was just a little hidden stump kind of in the track, or
where we banked off and it just happened to grab my foot peg and broke the brake
tip off. Then it actually bent the rest of the pedal that was left on top of my foot peg,
so I couldn’t even have my foot hardly on the peg. I lost quite a bit of time, probably
twenty seconds or so. It’s racing. I was pretty frustrated and bummed out. Kind of
thought I threw the weekend away.
Then today, same thing. Kind of started off a little slow and then kind of picked
up some momentum. Unfortunately I had another little fall in the Enduro test on
the second time through. Was pretty frustrated with that. That last test I knew I had
three seconds to make up on Strang. I just kind of hung it out a little bit. We were
able to get the job done and end up third for the day and third overall for the week-
end as well, actually. It was good. First debut on the blue machine. It was kind of a
good boost to momentum for sure. I was riding really good. It was a super rough
track. My speed is good. Obviously I wasn’t consistently fast to run with Kailub, but
I had a couple flashes where I was there. Just use this as a confidence booster head-
ing into the first GNCC and just keep working hard. Obviously it’s paying off. Just
minimize the little mistakes and we’ll be good. n