Louie Raffa scored his first professional race win in the Pro6 Cycle/Dunlop Tires Pro 600 championship twelve-lap final in the RACE Superseries finals Sept 23rd.
Riding the GoLo sponsored Honda CBR600, Raffa started well and ran third behind Michael Leon and Sean Huffman in the early stages of the contest. The Quebec rider moved into second place with a pass on Huffman four laps into the race and less than a lap later found himself with the race lead after Leon low-sided in Allen’s corner. Leon was able to remount and continue two laps down but the best he could do was fourth at race end.
Raffa and Huffman battled for the remainder of the race with Huffman putting a pass on Raffa with four laps remaining. The GoLo jockey quickly returned the favour moving into the race lead and adopting a defensive line to protect his lead. Huffman looked ready to pass once more but simply could not get the drive he needed to close the gap on the GoLo rider. Raffa’s margin of victory in this his maiden pro win was just 0.388 of a second. Amzy Nawaz placed a distant third.
“I’m very happy, that was good.” commented Raffa post race. “When Sean passed me I felt I could get him back but I wasn’t all that comfortable. The track was really slippery so I had to be careful. Once I got back in front of him I started riding a defensive line, if he was going to try me again he was going to have to work for it.”
Raffa beamed from the RACE podium thanking his supporting sponsors and GoLo Racing, “I really have to thank Rahul Dua, I came back this year from injury and he was there to support me through GoLo and Dua Motorsports, we couldn’t have done this year without his support. It turned out to be a good year and I’m looking forward to next season.”
Raffa also ran a consistant and unblemished seaon in the Mopar Canadian Superbike series for 2012 netting fourth place in the K&N Performance Filters Pro Sportbike National championship standings on the GoLo Racing Honda.
<
