New Hampshirites round out second all-Aprilia Twins Cup podium at Road Atlanta in two years
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2022
BRASELTON, Ga. — When the Aprilia RS 660 made its debut in the MotoAmerica Twins Cup last year at Road Atlanta, two Robem Engineering riders were part of an all-Aprilia podium in the motorcycle’s first race. This year’s MotoAmerica event at Road Atlanta featured similar results, as Robem Engineering Aprilia’s Teagg Hobbs and Ben Gloddy finished second and third Sunday in the round’s lone Twins Cup contest.
It was Hobbs’ second runner-up finish in three races with the Robem Engineering team, and he’s now just 3 points behind the class leader in the battle for the 2022 MotoAmerica Twins Cup title. Gloddy greatly improved his bid for the 2022 title at Road Atlanta, as he moved up from 12th to seventh in the points standings.
Hobbs showed excellent pace from the first on-track session of the event. He was the second fastest rider in Twins Cup Friday practice and missed out on the top spot in Qualifying 1 by 0.003 seconds. Gloddy finished practice ninth fastest but upped his pace for Qualifying 1. He wrapped up that session in fourth place and improved his best lap time by nearly three seconds.
Qualifying for the Twins Cup concluded Saturday morning with both riders finishing in the top four. Hobbs struggled through the early part of the session but missed out on pole position by a mere 0.025 seconds. Gloddy finished Qualifying 2 in fourth place and further improved his best lap time by about half a second.
Sunday’s race featured Hobbs locked in a race-long battle for the race lead, while Gloddy came out on top in a multi-bike battle for the last step on the podium. Both riders got good starts on Sunday when racing kicked off at about noontime, but the contest was stopped before one lap was completed due to a series of crashes.
When the race restarted, Hobbs and the race leader got good starts, and Gloddy slipped down the running order several positions on the first lap. As Hobbs and another Aprilia rider took turns leading the race, Gloddy kept his composure and worked his way to the front of the battle for third place. Hobbs made a valiant effort to hold onto the race lead but had to settle for a runner-up finish by a margin of 0.073 seconds. Gloddy was battling hard for third until the last lap and claimed his first MotoAmerica Twins Cup podium by 0.223 seconds.
The Robem Engineering team has three weeks to prepare for the next MotoAmerica round, which takes place May 20-22 at VIRginia International Raceway in Alton, Va.
Teagg Hobbs / No. 79
“The team really did their job this weekend. We made progress on our setup every session, and the Robem Engineering team had my Aprilia on point for today’s race. We did what we needed to do this weekend to get a bunch more valuable championship points. It’s still early in the season. We’re in this for long run, and finishes like this are just part of the process.”
Ben Gloddy / No. 72
“We started the weekend with a pretty good setup on our Aprilia. We struggled with getting the bike to turn early in the weekend, but we got that sorted out in time for the race. I’m really happy to be on the podium here at Road Atlanta. If we keep working like this, I think we’ll be good to go for the rest of the season. We’ve found a good base setup that I think will transfer over to VIR nicely.”
Robem Engineering’s technical partners for 2022 include Aprilia Racing, Piaggio Group Americas, The Center for Plastic Surgery, Synchrony, Velocity Calibrations, Bitubo Suspension, Woodcraft Technologies, Dymag, Vesrah, Sprint Filter, DID, Magura USA, Sara Chappell Photos, NGK/NTK, Blud Lubricants, Millennium Technologies, Motovation USA and SC-Project.
Header image caption: Robem Engineering rider Teagg Hobbs (No. 79). Photo by Sara Chappell Photos
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