Close Racing All Around On Saturday At Brainerd International Raceway

Gillim, Scholtz, Chapin And Landers Star On Day One In Minnesota

BRAINERD, MN – June 16, 2024 – (Motor Sports NewsWire) – It’s rare that you win a race and get overshadowed by your teammate who finished second, but that’s sort of what happened to Hayden Gillim on Saturday afternoon at Brainerd International Raceway in the Mission King Of The Baggers race.

As expected, given his pace at BIR all week, Gillim got the jump on the pack on his RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson and never looked back. It was his first win of what has been a difficult season for the defending class champion, and it was well earned.

Some four seconds behind Gillim came his Mission King Of The Baggers rookie teammate Rocco Landers after an impressive final lap that saw him pass both of the factory S&S Cycle/Indian Challengers ridden by Tyler O’Hara and points leader Troy Herfoss on the final lap. Landers had earlier already disposed of the all-time winningest rider in the class, Kyle Wyman.

It was hard to not be impressed by Landers’ ride as his best finish coming into the Brainerd round was fifth in the first race of the year at Daytona International Speedway. Landers was ecstatic, as he should be, and even those he beat were happy for him.

It was also a big day for the RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson team as they swept the top two steps on the podium.

Third place went to Herfoss, and it extended his championship points lead to 12 over Wyman, with the Harley-Davidson Factory Racing rider ending up fourth in the race.

Wyman’s teammate James Rispoli crashed out of second place early in the race.

“It’s been a rough, rough start,” Gillim said of his early season woes. “I think before this I had one podium. So not a great backup to the championship. It’s been a long road. I thought we were a little better off coming into the season than what we ended up being. We’ve been right there the whole time. Just missing a little bit. I knew the first few tracks we went to, Road Atlanta, COTA, Road America, Daytona were going to be difficult. Somehow, I pulled out some podiums last year at some of those tracks, but this year everybody is on top of their game. Both factories have really stepped it up. They haven’t really made many mistakes this year, so not much to capitalize on there. Coming into this weekend, I knew this was a really good track for me. I was ready to go, especially after how Road America went. To have one-two Vance &…