Michelin Pro Series brave threatening weather at Heartland Park
While the official forecast called for less than a 30% chance of rain this past weekend, a light drizzle put a damper on Round 2 of the Michelin Pro Series at Heartland Park Topeka, so only the bravest of riders took to the track to further their championship hopes. The amazing part is that even with poor track conditions, new records were set by some of the veteran ASRA racers at one of the toughest tracks on the circuit.
Even though it was Eric Bowyer on the Yamaha R1 with the SuperStock Hole Shot, it didn’t take long before Brian Hall on his Schaumburg Audi-sponsored Kawasaki ZX10 jumped out to a comfortable lead after lap 1, and he never looked back. Hall was able to move to a 9.303 second margin of victory over Joel Spalding on the Turn One Racing KTM RC8R. Bowyer was able to keep his R1 in third after a terrific race-long battle with Calvin Martinez, taking the position by .844 seconds.
From the start of Michelin Pro Series SuperBike, it was Jason Farrell on his Kawasaki who was the class of the field, as he simply dominated the competition with a 14.271 second margin of victory. Farrell not only took the win but established a new class record with a 1:40.696 on his Speed Tech Racing ZX6R, bettering the old mark of Marcos Reichert and his Yamaha R6 by 1.8 seconds. Second position was taken by SuperStock winner Brian Hall on his ZX6R followed by the Yamaha R6 of Tony Kasper 1.684 seconds later. Jordan Richardson on the Ray Price Triumph 675 finished fourth, earning enough points to take the class lead by six points, after two rounds of the championship.
After ThunderBike qualifying, it looked like the Indy sponsored Ducati 749 of Joel Spalding was the odds-on favorite to take the win over all comers, but late entrant Walt Sipp on his Buell had other ideas. Sipp started on the back row of the grid and was soon up to second place, pressuring Spalding for first and ultimately setting a new lap record for the class, a 1:45.231 on lap 7 of 10. Sipp, a former winner at Heartland Park, rode the wheels off the Buell but came up just 2.269 seconds short of Spalding after the 25-mile sprint. This was Joel Spalding’s second win of the season in ThunderBike, giving him a 23-point lead in the class standings for the championship. Third place went to Ray Hofman on his Sam’s Well Drilling Suzuki 650, moving him to second in the ThunderBike championship standings behind Spalding.
The SportBike class saw another record run for Jason Farrell on his Kawasaki ZX6R. Within the first three laps, Farrell had lowered the record set by Matt Hall in 2009 by just more than 1 second, to a 1:40.130, and that catapulted him into a commanding lead Tony Kasper couldn’t overcome. While Kasper on his Yamaha R6 held Farrell’s margin of victory to just more than 5 seconds, the front two riders put more than 48 seconds between them and the third place R6 of Aaron Colton.
The next event for the Michelin Pro Series is the Ninth-Annual Summit Point Cyclefest on May 29-31 at Summit Point Motorsports Park. This Memorial Day tradition includes the Championship Cup Series Mid-Atlantic and Atlantic Championships, for three full days of motorcycle road racing action on the Summit Point Circuit.
Motourage Online