Alessandro di Mario’s diary: my misadventures at Road Atlanta

Road Atlanta definitely doesn’t do me any favors, even though it’s a layout I really love, with lots of elevation changes and a massive downhill before the last corner that’s truly for the brave. The only downside is the battered asphalt which, besides disrupting your riding, pushes the rider’s effort to the limit.

It had been since my very first weekend in MotoAmerica (three years ago, also at Road Atlanta) that I hadn’t finished a race with zero points. In these three years I’d only crashed once at Barber in 2024 in the rain while I was leading, but I managed to get going again and finish seventh.

The weekend didn’t start badly with a tenth place in Practice 1, where I was getting my feel for the track back after two years away and we tried a different setup on the bike, and then fourth in Qualifying 1. Considering that two of the riders ahead of me were on the same bike as mine and their names are Darryn Binder (Warhorse) and Josh Herrin, for only my second race in Supersport I could be satisfied.

Unfortunately in Qualifying 2 (in the morning with much lower temperatures) I lost a bit of the feeling I’d had the day before and ended up seventh. Overall, the feeling is that we’re on the right path with the bike setup, but we still need that final small step to be competitive with the leaders.

In Race 1 I got a poor start, losing two positions. By the third lap I had recovered to seventh, but at the start of lap four, in turn 1, the front folded on me at about 150 km/h. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt, but the bike did a few somersaults and forced my amazing mechanics to pull an all-nighter. In the warm-up I could only confirm that the mechanics had done an exceptional job and that the bike was working well.

In Race 2 I started even worse (I tried a different system that clearly didn’t work) and found myself in fourteenth at the end of the first lap. I climbed back to tenth in five laps, but then I suffered from arm pump in my right arm, which kept me from riding effectively and left me finishing the race in twelfth.

In the end, a tough weekend but one that taught me a lot. Now I’m looking forward to the next race on the weekend of May 17, hoping to put what I’ve learned into practice at a track that usually suits me.

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