Regis Laconi admits that it was worth getting back on his bike for the second race of the weekend at Miller Motorsports Park, despite having injured himself with an off in the first.
Laconi had been a surprise front runner all weekend on his PSG-1 Kawasaki and was looking comfortable in the races from just inside the top ten.
However, the Frenchman tumbled out of contention on lap five from seventh place, a fall that Laconi admits caused him a sprain and several bruises on his back. Nonetheless, his resilience in the second race paid off as he resisted attack from those behind to eventually cross the line in ninth place only the third time he has finished inside the top ten all season.
I made a good start in race 1 but the long straight resulted in me being unable to maintain the conquered position. After the first lap I recovered the 7th placement gained at the start and I began to push as much as I could until the 5th lap where, at the first bend the bike started to slip a lot until it unhorsed me.
It was a bad crash which caused me a sprain and lots of bruises on my back. It was really painful but, I felt I could finish the race once I was on the bike. After a good start I maintained a good race pace and considering my physical conditions I'm really satisfied of my 9th placement and happy that I fought until the end with Nieto and Kiyonari.
Team-mate
Makoto Tamada, meanwhile, struggled around the American circuit up until the second event when a set-up change saw him finish 12th from 18th on the grid.
In race 1 we still hadn't an ideal set-up to avoid the chattering and I was unable to achieve a good position. In race two, after we adopted a new set-up decided between race one and two, I conquered the 12th position even after the bad start I made. We have to work a lot to obtain a positive result in next round in Germany.
