Filipino Rider in his strong fight in the prestigious Thailand Talent Cup

APRIL 21, 2019

Thailand, April 21-22, 2019 – Honda Philippines, Inc. (HPI) has once again participated in the prestigious Thailand Talent Cup (TTC), a step-up program in the “Road to MotoGP” of A.P. Honda, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (HM)’s subsidiary in Thailand.  Using the high performance, powerful, light, fast and agile machine, Honda NSF250R, the same bike used in Moto3 race.

This year, the TTC Round 1 started in the Thailand Circuit, located in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand.  A total of 19 riders joined the race program, where seven (7) are from other Asian countries: Philippines(1), Vietnam(1), India(2), Indonesia(2), and Malaysia(1), while the rest are from Thailand.

Our own Filipino rider Troy Jacob Cua Alberto, participated in the TTC for the 2^nd time, who gave a record-breaking performance last year, with a podium win of 2^nd place in Race 2 of Round 6.  Troy, who had just recovered from a collar bone surgery 2 weeks ago from a bicycle accident during his physical training, travelled to Thailand last April 17 with his mechanic, Jeethro Brondial and his father, Titus “Toti” Alberto, for the briefing.

Last April 18~19, in the 2-day free practice session, Troy was able to adjust his riding position and race set-up.  The result – Troy was able to get the best time ahead of his co-racers at 1:26.126. Thus, Troy’s goal was able to get the Pole Position in the Qualifying Round.

“Less than two weeks ago I was laying on a hospital bed, with a large metal plate and eight screws being inserted on my collarbone…. Today I finished second on combined practice times while leading for most of the sessions. I was unsure if I could even ride coming into the weekend, so happy with my performance so far. QTT and Race 1 tomorrow, 20 laps in 40 degree heat!”  – Troy’s message.

In the qualifying round, Troy was showing strong performance but a rider in front of him crashed, making him lose his momentum. His time was 1:26.511, settling for 2^nd.

In Race 1, Troy started at the front row and was consistently fighting for the 2^nd place but crashed in Lap 9. His recorded time 1:25.765 is the 3^rd fastest (from 1:24.976 fastest time); while in Race 2, Troy was again determined to get to the podium for Round 1. He was battling for 3^rd place, when he crashed on the last 4 laps.

In his Facebook post after the race, Troy’s message was “Taking the positives from the weekend and learning the negatives. Moving (on, we) focus now to finding how we can best prepare ourselves for the next one.”