When 15-year-old Anthony Mazziotto earned a ride in the KTM RC Cup World Finals at Silverstone he was thrilled to arrive in London. Upon arrival, his dad and weekend crew, Artie Meeker, went straight to work on his bike. He and the other riders took a look at the track with Chris Filmore and Jeremy McWilliams, the all-star coaches, while his dad and Artie were getting the bike ready to go. Early Friday morning, they set off to the track as “Team USA” to finish off the details, buy fuel, rent transponders, and get to the rider meetings. KTM had a wonderful hospitality area set up with catered breakfast and lunch as well as plenty to drink and a place to sit and study track maps. At 12:45 PM that day we were finally told to walk our bikes to pit lane. I got suited up and started stretching out, ready to get on the track.
Mazziotto had planned to follow some of the local kids to get a fill of track. Back in America, the riders are lined up single file and are let out in small groups; here the light goes green and the entire group takes off. He was in the front of the group for the entire session; he was going fast and didn’t feel he had the chance to learn anything. While he did good on the time sheets, when looking at the map he couldn’t figure out where he could pick up time at. He began to see where he needed to be once going over the map with Colin Edwards and Jeremy McWilliams.
British Superbike use Free Practice 2 times for a “Mock Grid and Practice start” that starts the one and only Qualifying session Saturday morning. Mazziotto wasn’t feeling confident; he wanted to ride Free Practice 2 by himself. After much thinking, he decided to do just that. He cruised for the first lap looking at the sights and seeing the corner without any pressure. He tried a few different line and gear choices through the two sections he found most important. When he hit the tracks for race 1, he pushed hard. An American won the race, but it wasn’t him. Race 2 was going much better; he was in second place when the bike came out from under him. With 30 bikes behind him he jumped up to take off again. However, the marshals took it from him and said he couldn’t finish after a crash.
Even though he didn’t get the win, Anthony says he had a lot of fun. KTM put on an awesome event.