Great Scotts: Harwell And Greenwood Highlight Friday’s CCS Racing At Daytona

Great Scotts: Harwell And Greenwood Highlight Friday’s CCS Racing At Daytona

© 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc. By David Swarts.

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Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc. Arclight Suzuki’s Scott Harwell and New England Performance’s Scott Greenwood each won a CCS race Friday at Daytona International Raceway. Harwell won the 30-minute GTO Expert race on his Pirelli DOT-equipped GSX-R1000 after 14K The Movie’s Eric Wood developed mechanical problems. Wood lead from the start on his Michael Cox-built GSX-R750 and amassed a nearly 10-second lead in the second half of the race. As the race wore on, Wood’s engine began to slow. “I lost 1500 rpm through the race,” said Wood from the back of the crash truck, “then it just quit.” Wood’s mechanical problems left Fritz Kling and Harwell battling for the lead on their GSX-R1000s. Harwell timed his move just right and beat Kling to the line by half a bikelength. Hooters Suzuki’s Michael Barnes finished less than a bikelength behind Kling on a GSX-R750 despite starting the race from 17th row, in the second wave. Defending Formula USA Unlimited Superbike Champion Shawn Higbee finished fourth after starting in the 69th grid position. In an impressive effort, Team America’s Jason DiSalvo ran as high as fourth in his first full race on his new Suzuki GSX-R750 before being passed by Barnes and Higbee late in the event. Official results from the GTO race were held Friday evening pending a protest. The GTU race was even more entertaining. The drama started before the green flag when a warm-up-lap crash involving Randy Renfrow and Andre Bibeau in the dogleg delayed the start, forced a second warm-up lap and reduced the amount of time the race would run from 30 minutes to 18. When the green flag finally flew, Greenwood passed early leaders Harwell and Jeff Wood on the first lap and began pulling away. Greenwood built a lead that grew to nearly seven seconds over Wood as Harwell was caught and passed by DiSalvo and Team Valvoline EMGO Suzuki’s Josh Hayes. Starting from row 9 and 16 respectively, DiSalvo and Hayes caught and passed Wood halfway through the sprint. DiSalvo, riding his A-kitted 2001 Honda RS250, and Hayes, riding his 2002 GSX-R600, found each other and began a spirited dice that led to some of the lowest lap times of the day, 1:55s. Drafting back and forth around the banking, the DiSalvo/Hayes duel crept up behind Greenwood closing the gap to two seconds with one lap remaining. On the final circuit, Greenwood nearly ran off the track in the chicane and lost time while Hayes and DiSalvo leapfrogged each other one last time around the East banking. The battle for second closed on Greenwood, but the New Hampshire rider was able to make it to the finish line with 0.23-second to spare over Hayes, DiSalvo, Barnes from row 19, Larry Pegram from row 18, Wood, Denning, Harwell, Scott Hermersmann and Jim Lester. Saturday’s program includes more CCS sprint races and qualifying for Sunday’s Formula USA National Road Race Series feature events.

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