Motourage

Sunday’s AMA Pro Road Racing finals at the 2.25-mile Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Va. to close out the the Suzuki White Lightning AMA Pro Nationals Presented by Foremost Insurance event weekend provided redemption for a couple of riders and also brought a divisional championship to another very deserving rider.

SuperBike points leader Josh Hayes reasserted himself at the top of the tables in every way. After what was for him a disappointing third-place result in Saturday’s race, where his main championship rival Tommy Hayden took a well-measured victory, Hayes came back to dominate the 23-lap Superbike race 2.

Josh Hayes celebrates after Sunday's Superbike race 2 win

“I just feel like I woke up, I didn’t like to get beat yesterday,” said Hayes.  “Somewhere along the way I feel like I kind of got lost a little bit, just in my riding.  I wasn’t riding my full potential and I was still capable of racing for the wins.  I think our motorcycle has a lot to do with that, we have a really good motorcycle.  I was just thinking about, what was my mindset last year?  I was racing myself a lot more last year.  These guys ride great, but I put an awful lot of pressure on myself to perform, so that’s what I tried to get back to this morning and today’s race was a race against myself.”

Hayes led every lap on his way to a series high fifth win in the SuperBike class.  Pole position winner Ben Bostrom duplicated his second place from yesterday to round out a solid weekend.

Tommy Hayden battled first with Hayes and then fought Bostrom for second before he finished third to stay close to Hayes in the points chase. Hayden is only 11 points adrift of Hayes with two double header race weekends to go.

“I felt pretty good about stepping up and going faster than I had all weekend there for the first five or six laps,” said Hayden.  “But in the end we didn’t have the pace to go that fast, or cooked the tire a little bit and couldn’t keep up.  That’s the biggest part of it really, we just weren’t fast enough.”

Riding to fourth place was Jordan Suzuki rookie Brett McCormick who easily had the best race of his season in relief of injured teammate Aaron Yates.  Yates did make an appearance at VIR this weekend and quickly showed his mettle with an excellent qualifying effort, but he decided not to race until he was fully confident that he was in race distance shape after his lengthy lay off.

Another rider having a good day was Taylor Knapp who rode to a fifth place-finish after dueling with Jake Zemke and Erik Buell Racing’s Geoff May. Chris Ulrich also ran well today and took seventh aboard his M4 Monster Energy Suzuki.  Zemke ran in fifth place in the early stages of the race but fell to eighth after battling hard to hold onto every position.

Larry Pegram fell from sixth at the start down to 15th on lap two but made his way back to ninth at the flag. Canadian Superbike Champion Jordan Szoke made his second AMA Pro SuperBike appearance of the year after racing at Mid-Ohio and impressed once again with a tenth place finish after a battle with Shane Narbone.

Daytona SportBike

In the Daytona SportBike class, Josh Herrin was able to bounce back from the disappointment of Saturday’s race that ended for him almost as soon as it started.

Race 1 winner Bobby Fong had a short day on Sunday when he went down in turn one moments after the start. Meanwhile, Danny Eslick again battled with Team Graves Yamaha rider Josh Herrin, Vesrah Suzuki’s Cory West, Latus Motors Ducati’s Steve Rapp and second Graves rider Tommy Aquino.

More close racing in Sunday's Daytona Sportbike race1

Herrin came by the line on lap five indicating that he was feeling some rain. Moments later, after taking the lead, Eslick also put up his arm to let the field behind him know that moisture was making conditions potentially too dangerous to continue without a potential change to rain tires.  The race was red flagged and after a short break, the brief shower passed and the field reformed for the restart.

Again, Herrin and Eslick had strong starts and headed the field.  Martin Cardenas had a tough start and dropped back to ninth, but began a charge to the front that took him right back to the middle of the action by lap 15 and up to third with one lap to go. Cardenas pushed too hard and went off the track on the last lap to finish fifth.

Herrin was strong out of the last corner, and led and the line, but Eslick would out-braked everyone to regain the lead. Steve Rapp grabbed the lead only to have Eslick and Herrin re-pass him again and again.  Cory West was in the middle of the action, and if not for him running wide in turn one on the last lap, he was one of at least five riders that could have won.

Going into the last lap, the first four were separated by less than a tenth of a second at the line, and Herrin, West, Eslick, Cardenas and Rapp all hurtled into turn one for the last time.  Cardenas and West went wide and ran off, leaving Herrin, Eslick and Rapp to battle it out.  Eslick was leading, but Herrin got past, and as they came to the line, Steve Rapp grabbed second from Eslick.  Herrin’s margin of victory was 0.174 over Rapp and only 0.241 over his championship points rival Eslick.

Herrin reflected on a day where he was able to bounce back from the disappointment of Saturday’s race: “The race was really good, every time somebody passed me it seemed like it was somebody different.  Danny rode an awesome race; my bike was a little faster today so it was a little bit easier to get those extra points.”  Herrin was able to lead the most laps and with the win, he made up some valuable ground on points leader Eslick.

Eslick talked about his day, “I figured it’d be pretty close to the same deal as yesterday and then Josh was up in there.  I knew Cory would be strong again today so there was quite a few of us up there. That little bit of drizzle was kind of sketchy.  It was hard to tell if it’s coming down harder that it was.  We were just trying to be a little bit cautious there.  I think it was a good call, to figure out what was going on.  It turned out pretty good, it presented a good race after the restart.  It was a lot of fun, there at the end, it got pretty wild.”

Steve Rapp was happy to be back on the podium again, his seventh appearance this year.  “When I was out front, I gave it my best shot, and then when they started coming back by again and it’s like, ‘Well there’s no point, obviously I can’t get away so I’m going to ride with them for a little bit, see if they make a mistake.’ It worked out pretty good.”

P.J Jacobson ran well today on his Celtic Racing Suzuki and he took a solid fourth ahead of Cardenas. Michael Beck had another good day on his DNA Energy Drink Ducati and took sixth.  West recovered to finish seventh ahead of Paul Allison on the Chronic Motorsports Yamaha.  Tommy Aquino had an off-track excursion and finished a disappointed ninth ahead of Fernando Amantini on his Team Amantini Kawasaki.

All in all, it was more of the same in Daytona SportBike Presented by AMSOIL, two more absolute barn burners with the championship fight going right down to the last race.

Beach Wraps up SuperSport East

In the first race of the day, Rockwall Engineering Yamaha rider J.D. Beach took his seventh win in the Pro SuperSport class.  With Huntley Nash finishing, it enabled Beach to capture his AMA Pro SuperSport Young Gun East Division championship.

The battle for the lead in Sunday's Supersport race

“I didn’t think I was going to win the championship when the season started,” said Beach. “I was riding good at the end of the season last year but I knew Huntley was going to be stepping it up this year.  I wasn’t sure what division Joey was riding in.  I knew Cameron, I was excited because I kind of got him the ride for Rockwall.  After I got him the ride I realized that he was probably going to be kind of fast, so I kind of made a mistake there but I did what I knew how to do and rode consistent and rode to the best that I could.  Not too crazy, but crazy enough to win, and it just ended up this way.  If the team does go to New Jersey we’re going to be running SportBike.”

After falling back at the start, Beach had to fight his way past a number of riders but once clear, he again sailed off into the distance, winning by five seconds over Nash who fought to second place.  Finishing third after running second in the early stages of the race was Dustin Dominguez.

This was Dominguez’s second race weekend with AMA Pro racing in 2010, and he again showed his speed by running right with the series regulars.  The Young Gun West Division championship winner, Joey Pascarella led early but was sidelined after leading the first three laps.  Nash took over but there was no denying Beach again this weekend.

Travis Wyman completed a nice weekend with a fourth place finish on his Harv’s Harley-Davidson AB-1 Motorsports Yamaha.  Wyman took sixth on Saturday and also rode to second in the Vance & Hines XR1200 series race on Sunday.

Eslick Continues XR1200 March

For the last race of the weekend, Danny Eslick took the win in the AMA Pro Vance & Hines XR1200 series ahead of Travis Wyman and teammate Jake Holden.  Eslick led the way to his third out of three XR1200 series victories. Today, after battling with his teammate Jake Holden in the early stages of the race, it was Wyman who emerged as his biggest rival for the win as Wyman also concluded a successful weekend after taking sixth and fourth place finishes in this weekend’s SuperSport races.  Holden had some issues and admitted to having a tough day.

Danny Eslick continued his perfect season in the XR1200 class