Maryland rider leaves VIRginia International Raceway round 16th in Stock 1000 standings
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 25, 2021
ALTON, Va. — It was a trying weekend of racing for Jeremy Cook at MotoAmerica’s Superbikes at Virginia, as the BMW rider persevered through an arm injury to score more championship points in MotoAmerica’s Stock 1000 Class.
Cook left the May 21-23 event at VIRginia International Raceway with his second points-paying finish of the 2021 season, a total of four championship points and 16th place in the Stock 1000 standings.
Unlike the first round of the 2021 MotoAmerica season at Road Atlanta, VIR is a track Cook has ample experience racing on. He finished the Stock 1000 Class’ first practice session in 17th place and, later on Friday, finished the class’ first qualifying session in 18th. Qualifying wrapped up Saturday morning with Cook having secured 19th place on the starting grid.
Saturday’s Stock 1000 race was Cook’s bright spot of the weekend. He got a good start and gradually worked his way up the running order. Cook finished Lap 4 of the 14-lap race in 13th and had advanced to 12th by the end of Lap 7. Cook maintained 12th place until the last lap of the race, when he was passed by another rider and had to settle for a 13th place finish.
Though it was Cook’s best finish of the 2021 season to date, he and his BMW motorcycle experienced setbacks on Friday that hampered the team’s efforts to claim its first top-10 of 2021. During Friday practice, oil began misting out of Cook’s motorcycle, ruining two rear tires and curtailing the team’s effort to find an ideal chassis and suspension setup. Cook’s first full on-track session of the weekend was Friday qualifying, during which the hot conditions and the physical nature of the VIR North Course caused an old left forearm injury of Cook’s to reemerge.
On Sunday, Cook came down with a dehydration-like symptoms, the effects of which slowed his pace toward the end of day’s Stock 1000 race. Cook finished that contest in 25th place.
Next up on Jeremy Cook Racing’s schedule is the MotoAmerica Superbikes at Road America round, which takes place June 11-13 at the Road America circuit in Elkhart Lake, Wis.
Jeremy Cook / No. 81
“Race 1 went pretty good. I had a great start, but the heat got to me for sure during the last six laps. The track was really greasy — especially in Turn 2 — and I’m not really a flat tracker. I like to have the bike in line as much as possible. I had a big wreck here in 2009 and have some not-so-fond memories of this track from it. I was feeling under the weather before Sunday’s race, but toughed it out and made it to the starting grid. I stayed with a pack of riders around me as long as I could early in the race, but they gradually started to pull away from me. I outbroke myself heading into Turn 7 on one lap, got back on track and tried to make up as many positions as I could. I later had a near front-end tuck in Turn 1 as I was trying to make up track position, and after that I started to tire physically. Our goal this weekend was to be in the top 15 and even crack the top 10. There were just a bunch of mistakes all at once, but we’ll take what we learned here to the next round at Road America.”
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Marino Communications 