Arriving at Fontana with Hungarian rider Gabor Rizmayer off in Germany racing, Safety First Suzuki relied on the efforts of 17 year old Bobby Fong to carry the flag for the team during the weekend. Thursday promoter practice found Bobby immediately on pace as he dropped into the high 1:27’s. This was impressive because Bobby was less than a second off of the fastest lap in the race last year and a full 2 seconds faster than his quickest time a year ago.



Leading into the weekend, Bobby had joked with team owner, Kevin Hanson, that he would go a second quicker once he got his new leathers. I’ve been finalizing a deal with RS Taichi over the last few weeks and Bobby kept pestering me every two hours on when his new leathers were going show up. He wasn’t kidding when he said he would go faster. Heck, I’ll give him a new suit every week if it will work, joked Hanson. I can’t thank Audrey from Moto Liberty enough for all of her help in bringing RS Taichi on board. The leathers are definitely premium quality and the really cool thing is they come in three different variations for each available size. For example, Bobby is a size thin 40 which is cut different from a standard size 40. The suit showed up fitting him like a glove, but was an off the rack suit…definitely impressive,explained Hanson.



Supersport Qualifying: 14th



With Supersport qualifying being postponed to Sunday, Bobby only had 20 minutes to “get er done” Sunday morning. I started with a race tire for 5 laps to get up to speed and then came in for a zero Pirelli rear. Since the draft is important here for a good qualifying time, I was trying to get a tow from Blake Young, but ended up just in front of him and towed him around for his fast qualifying time. I ended up 14th fastest in the final seconds of qualifying pushing my own air. It worked out great for Blake because he ended up 7th, I need to get better at qualifying because for some reason I get nervous and try and push too hard and go slower, commented Fong.



Supersport Result: DNF (crash)



Man, I’m really bummed about my result. All of my guys worked really hard and I simply screwed up. I got caught behind Michael Beck on the restart and got overanxious trying to get around him and crashed. I’m bummed because everyone on my crew worked hard including Mark Junge who found more power for our bikes this weekend. I gotta thank Mark because these Suzukis are freakin fast now and I had the speed to run with the factory guys out there this weekend, stated Fong.

The great thing is we get better and better every weekend with the new Suzuki and the team working together. The race result doesn’t really show how much we progressed this weekend. You begin to realize all of the hard work is starting to fall into place when factory riders are sitting up on Bobby and not towing him around the track, chimed Hanson.



The team heads to Infineon Raceway for the next AMA round which is only 45 minutes from Bobby’s hometown in Stockton, CA.



Safety First Racing was formed in 2004 by police officer/racer, Kevin Hanson, based out of Chicago, IL. For 2008, Safety First Suzuki will be competing in the Supersport class in the AMA Superbike series Checkoutt www.SAFETYFIRSTRACING.com to see the latest line of apparel and performance products from Safety First Racing. Kevin Hanson continues to give away Bell bicycle helmets to elementary school children nationwide and educate children about the importance of helmet usage.

Arriving at Fontana with Hungarian rider Gabor Rizmayer off in Germany racing, Safety First Suzuki relied on the efforts of 17 year old Bobby Fong to carry the flag for the team during the weekend. Thursday promoter practice found Bobby immediately on pace as he dropped into the high 1:27’s. This was impressive because Bobby was less than a second off of the fastest lap in the race last year and a full 2 seconds faster than his quickest time a year ago.



Leading into the weekend, Bobby had joked with team owner, Kevin Hanson, that he would go a second quicker once he got his new leathers. I’ve been finalizing a deal with RS Taichi over the last few weeks and Bobby kept pestering me every two hours on when his new leathers were going show up. He wasn’t kidding when he said he would go faster. Heck, I’ll give him a new suit every week if it will work, joked Hanson. I can’t thank Audrey from Moto Liberty enough for all of her help in bringing RS Taichi on board. The leathers are definitely premium quality and the really cool thing is they come in three different variations for each available size. For example, Bobby is a size thin 40 which is cut different from a standard size 40. The suit showed up fitting him like a glove, but was an off the rack suit…definitely impressive,explained Hanson.



Supersport Qualifying: 14th



With Supersport qualifying being postponed to Sunday, Bobby only had 20 minutes to “get er done” Sunday morning. I started with a race tire for 5 laps to get up to speed and then came in for a zero Pirelli rear. Since the draft is important here for a good qualifying time, I was trying to get a tow from Blake Young, but ended up just in front of him and towed him around for his fast qualifying time. I ended up 14th fastest in the final seconds of qualifying pushing my own air. It worked out great for Blake because he ended up 7th, I need to get better at qualifying because for some reason I get nervous and try and push too hard and go slower, commented Fong.



Supersport Result: DNF (crash)



Man, I’m really bummed about my result. All of my guys worked really hard and I simply screwed up. I got caught behind Michael Beck on the restart and got overanxious trying to get around him and crashed. I’m bummed because everyone on my crew worked hard including Mark Junge who found more power for our bikes this weekend. I gotta thank Mark because these Suzukis are freakin fast now and I had the speed to run with the factory guys out there this weekend, stated Fong.

The great thing is we get better and better every weekend with the new Suzuki and the team working together. The race result doesn’t really show how much we progressed this weekend. You begin to realize all of the hard work is starting to fall into place when factory riders are sitting up on Bobby and not towing him around the track, chimed Hanson.



The team heads to Infineon Raceway for the next AMA round which is only 45 minutes from Bobby’s hometown in Stockton, CA.



Safety First Racing was formed in 2004 by police officer/racer, Kevin Hanson, based out of Chicago, IL. For 2008, Safety First Suzuki will be competing in the Supersport class in the AMA Superbike series Checkoutt www.SAFETYFIRSTRACING.com to see the latest line of apparel and performance products from Safety First Racing. Kevin Hanson continues to give away Bell bicycle helmets to elementary school children nationwide and educate children about the importance of helmet usage.