At the previous MotoAmerica Twins Cup round at Laguna Seca in July, Rodio Racing – Powered by Robem Engineering riders Rocco Landers and Gus Rodio won one race each. This past weekend, the duo repeated those results, with each rider also riding an Aprilia RS 660 to a podium finish and Rodio increasing his lead in the Twins Cup standings from three points to eight.
Landers’ and Rodio’s results were hard earned, as both races featured close, hard racing between them and another frontrunning rider. Landers also weathered a small crash Sunday morning and persevered through an engine issue in Race 2 to secure a second-place finish.
Though Rodio and Landers were the only two Aprilia riders in the top 10 in Friday morning practice, the duo were the second and third fastest riders in the session. Rodio’s best lap time was about one-tenth of a second faster than Landers’. Later Friday, Rodio ended the day on provisional pole. His best time in Qualifying 1 was more than a second faster than his best time from practice – and 0.063 seconds faster than the next-fastest rider. Landers ended that session third-fastest.
Qualifying 2 ended with a Rodio Racing – Powered by Robem Engineering Aprilia on pole position, as Landers laid down a 1:47.736 lap time to secure his fifth Twins Cup pole of the 2023 season. Rodio ended up qualifying third, putting two Aprilia RS 660s on the front row. The third Aprilia rider to qualify in the top 10 was Chase Brown of BrownTown Racing, who claimed 10th place on the starting grid.
Race 1 got off to a good start for Landers and Rodio, as the pair slotted in behind another frontrunner off the line. Rodio moved into first place a few corners later at Turn 7, and Landers advanced to second place a short time later but fell back to third place at the Turn 16 chicane. Though Rodio was leading the field at the end of Lap 1, Landers got past his teammate on Lap 2 and weathered a brief battle for the lead on Lap 4 to eventually claim the victory by 3.444 seconds. Rodio finished the remaining laps of the 11-lap race in third place, though a valiant effort on the last lap saw him narrowly miss out on clinching second place by 0.042 seconds. Brown finished the race in 10th to give Aprilia three riders in the top 10.
Landers had a monkey wrench thrown into his plans for Sunday’s race, as he crashed at Turn 3 during Sunday morning warm-up. The team and Landers decided to change the engine on his Aprilia RS 660 before the race.
Sunday’s Race 2 was reduced from 11 laps to 9 due to an incident in an earlier race, and, much like Race 1, Rodio and Landers were running second and third, respectively, as the field went through the first corner. Rodio moved into the race lead at Turn 3, and Rodio, Landers and one of their championship rivals gradually pulled away from the rest of the field. Rodio fell to second place as the trio approached the chicane on the backstraight on Lap 1, and the remaining laps featured a good scrap between Landers, Rodio and another rider. On the last lap, the other frontrunner made a mistake under braking, which allowed Landers and Rodio to pull away from him. As the duo navigated the remaining corners, Rodio was able to get by Landers to secure the win by 0.104 seconds. Landers’ runner-up result gave the Rodio Racing – Powered by Robem Engineering team its third 1-2 finish of the season. Brown scored another 10th-place result and was again the third Aprilia rider to finish in the top 10.
Of the 41 riders registered to compete in the MotoAmerica Twins Cup at PittRace, 16 of them were aboard Aprilia RS 660s.
The final – and title-deciding – round of the 2023 MotoAmerica Twins Cup season takes place Sept. 22-24 at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, N.J.
Gus Rodio (No. 96) / Rodio Racing – Powered by Robem Engineering
“We struggled a little bit with bike setup this weekend and getting through the second sector – which is the esses and backstraight. We made some progress today, but we took a gamble on the tires. We made a step in the right direction today with the setup, but the tire was a little greasy. I’m happy with the results we had this weekend, and we lengthened the points lead a little going into my home race. I’ll have a lot of friends and family at the next round, and we’ll see what happens there.”
Rocco Landers (No. 97) / Rodio Racing – Powered by Robem Engineering
“This is a good track for me, and the team had the bike working really good. I made a mistake this morning and we took the precaution of changing the engine. Unfortunately, that change resulted in a loss of power. I tried hard in the race, and I don’t know if I could’ve done much more than I did. It was good to get another 1-2 result.”
