New rider, Chris Woods, is joining the YamahaR3Racing.com team!

I am proud to announce that racer, Chris Woods will be joining the YamahaR3Racing.com team for the 2016 season!  He will compete in the 2016 OMRRA: Ultra Lightweight and Lightweight, Supersport & Superbike classes.

Twenty-nine year old Chris has been involved in auto racing for years, racing in SCCA, Spec e30, and Pro3 classes.  He has also worked extensively on the prep and crew side having built and prepared countless spec e30 BMWs and spec Mazda Miatas. Chris is also a trackday and driver coach for SCCA and NASA and has been on the crew for multiple IMSA teams.

Chris is relatively new to motorcycles, which is partly why his addition to the YamahaR3Racing.com team is so exciting.  On December 1, 2014, Chris received his motorcycle driving endorsement.  He had never ridden a motorcycle before this.  Shortly thereafter, he purchased a used Ninja 250 race bike to race the 2015 season and a Yamaha FZ-07 (to essentially learn how to ride in the time before the season started).  A short four months later, Chris took the Novice race school and finished 12th out of 22 riders on the Ninja in his practice race, despite the amazing fact that this was the first time he had ever ridden it.  Chris raced the May and June OMRRA rounds, finishing 7th for the May weekend, then 4th for the June weekend.  He was promoted to Expert for the 3rd round, where he won his first race of the weekend in the rain, and finished 3rd in the second race.  Chris ended the season finishing 5th in the August round having failed to run the September round due to bike mechanical issues.

Chris has a natural and extremely sensitive feel for the bike and what it’s doing beneath him.  Combine this with his extremely strong technical understanding of road racing from his years of experience with cars, and he is quickly becoming a very strong competitor.  We are very excited to see what he can do aboard his fully built 2016 YamahaR3Racing.com YZF-R3 once he gets a little more seat time.