Landers victorious, shares podium with teammate Rodio Sunday in MotoAmerica Twins Cup race at The Ridge Motorsports Park

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rodio Racing - Powered by Robem Engineering rider Rocco Landers (No. 97).

Photo by Sara Chappell Photos

SHELTON, Wash. -- After enduring a trying weekend at the previous MotoAmerica Twins Cup round at Barber Motorsports Park, the Rodio Racing -- Powered by Robem Engineering duo of Rocco Landers and Gus Rodio found more success at the June 23-25 Twins Cup round at The Ridge Motorsports Park.

Landers was in dominant form from the start of the round, as he earned pole, a third place and a win. And Rodio was back in frontrunning form as he netted a fourth-place finish on Saturday and a podium finish on Sunday.

Thanks to their positive on-track performances in both Twin Cup races at The Ridge, Landers and Rodio and now just 11 and 13 points out of the championship lead, respectively.

Landers set the pace in Friday morning practice. His best lap time was a 1:48.063, which was more than half a second faster than the next fastest rider. Rodio also had a good start to the weekend, as he finished Friday practice fourth fastest. Landers and Rodio rounded out Friday’s on-track activity with more positive results, as Landers claimed provisional pole -- while lowering his best lap time by about 1.5 seconds -- and Rodio ended that session fifth-fastest.

The second and final qualifying session of the round took place Saturday morning and saw Landers clinch his third pole position of the season. Rodio also had a very good end to qualifying. He improved his best qualifying lap time by about 1.5 seconds and qualified third -- which put both of the team’s riders on the front row for both Twins Cup races.

Rodio Racing - Powered by Robem Engineering rider Gus Rodio (No. 96). Photo by Sara Chappell Photos

Saturday afternoon’s Race 1 was the site of another dominating performance by Landers. After a short battle for the lead into Turn 1, Landers paced the field and -- in the later laps -- began building a several second gap to the battle for second place. Rodio finished Lap 1 running in fourth place and briefly fell to fifth in the running order on Lap 2. After a rider in front of him crashed on Lap 3 -- and after nearly crashing himself -- Rodio gradually reeled in the two riders battling for second place. Rodio wasn’t able to get close enough to the other riders to overtake them and finished the race in fourth place. As Landers began the final lap, he came up to the back of a lapped rider that was experiencing a mechanical problem and going slowly at the start of a yellow flag zone. Landers was unable to slow down enough to avoid overtaking the rider within the yellow flag zone and was assessed a penalty that dropped him from first to third in the race results.

Sunday’s Race 2 also started with Landers briefly being challenged for the lead before taking the holeshot. After clearing the first chicane, Landers steadily built a gap to the rest of the field while Rodio slipped to fifth in the running order for the first several laps. As Landers stretched out his advantage over the rest of his competition, Rodio upped his pace and had worked his way up to third place by the end of Lap 4 and second place by the end of Lap 9. Landers ended up taking the win by a margin of more than 11 seconds, while Rodio had to settle for third place after being passed on the last lap by another frontrunning rider.

Rocco Landers / No. 97

“The end to Race 1 was disappointing, but my Aprilia RS 660 is working amazing. My favorite thing about the bike is how easy it has been to set up. We found a solid base setup at the Road Atlanta round, and we haven’t had to make any big changes since then. We actually didn’t change anything from Friday’s Qualifying 1 to today’s Race 2. I don’t see why we can’t get a couple 1-2 finishes at the next round at Laguna Seca and keep this momentum rolling.”

Gus Rodio / No. 96

“It was a good weekend on my Rodio Racing -- Powered by Robem Engineering Aprilia RS 660. It was a little bit of a learning curve for me, as I hadn’t raced here on a Twins Cup bike before. I think we did a pretty good job at figuring the bike setup out, and I’m happy to leave here with a podium finish after not scoring any points at the last round. I’m looking forward to racing at Laguna Seca and making more improvements there.”

The Rodio Racing -- Powered by Robem Engineering team is back in action in two weeks time when the MotoAmerica Twins Cup takes to the Laguna Seca circuit July 7-9.

Robem Engineering’s technical partners for 2023 include Aprilia Racing, Piaggio Group Americas, Bitubo Suspension, Dunlop, Woodcraft Technologies, Dymag, Vesrah, Sprint Filter, DID, Sara Chappell Photos, NGK/NTK, Blud Lubricants, Millennium Technologies, Motovation USA and SC-Project.

Rodio Racing's technical partners for 2023 include NJ MiniGP, Luxestar VIP, MAR Contractors, Geoscape Solar, Evolve GT, N2 Racing, Dunlop, Spellcaster Productions, Kathedral, The Martinn, Liqui Moly and MVR Endeavor.

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This press release has been prepared by Marino Communications on behalf of Rodio Racing - Powered by Robem Engineering. If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Michael Marino at 614.636.0199 ormichael@marinocommunications.com