Team Morse Racing *wins* in the sweltering heat of the Colorado summer! Team Morse Racing took home more wins in the Colorado-based MRA this past weekend at Continental Divide Raceway in Mead Colorado. With temperatures well into the mid-nineties, it was a true test of endurance for both man and machine. Regular spectators of the MRA’s Saturday endurance races now expect to see a good battle between Dave Gallant and Mike Applehans aboard their SV650s, and this weekend the two Team Morse racers did not let them down. Right from the drop of the green flag, both racers were trading positions while working their way through the first wave of the middleweight endurance class running at the same time. The fans were treated to multiple passes per lap in some cases with both Dave and Mike leading a good number of laps. When the checkered flag was thrown, it was Mike Applehans in the lead to take home the CDR Lightweight Endurance class win. “As usual, I had a great time out there. I put on a new set of Pirelli’s for this race and they really did the trick. When racing these little bikes we both have to be perfect lap after lap – if we make one mistake the other will take advantage of it and slip by! I can’t say enough about the bike as a total package – the EBC Brakes, the Suspension Solutions suspension, the Pirelli tires – they really make it easy to concentrate on winning.” said Mike Applehans of his LW Endurance win. Sunday greeted the team with more high temperatures and more stiff competition. Dave’s RacerSupply.com GSXR 600 suffered what turned out to be an ECU failure in the morning warm-up, so he was relegated to racing his Suzuki SV650 in all the classes of the day. He made the best of it however, winning the first race of the day, Lightweight Grand Prix. “Mike and I got out to a good start, but by lap two his bike didn’t sound quite right and I tried to break away and not allow any of the rest of the grid to lock onto my tail section. A TZ250 however was able to make up quite a bit of time on my Supersport SV650 in a straight line at this horsepower track, so I knew I had a race on my hands by halfway distance. After racing TZ’s for so long I knew the line he would have to take – so I did my best to make sure I was always just slightly slower at the points on the track he wanted to be slightly faster. I am sure it was frustrating for him, but I have been on that end of the deal many times on my TZ and it made me a better racer because of it. I tried the new Pirelli slick for the first time this weekend and it was phenomenal. The profile of the front is perfect for these bikes, and the rear-end grip basically let me hold it wide-open on every exit. Shane & Joe there at The Racer Supply Company really take care of us with these tires and I can’t thank them enough.” The heat wore on the racers as the day went on, and both Dave and Mike put in solid top-ten finishes in many of their classes. Most notably, Mike Applehans put in a fantastic performance in Heavyweight Supersport spending a few laps showing last season’s class champion the fast way around the circuit, finishing in a strong 5th place. When asked about the weekend, Scott Morse of Morse Racing Products/GP Composites commented, “These conditions are hard on everyone. It is hard work finding the right tire, finding the right suspension setup, and making sure the riders and machinery keep as cool as they can. We tend to forget we don’t have much experience with any of our new bikes so finding a good baseline setting is still the hardest part of the weekend, and the conditions like we had this weekend do not help the situation. The one thing this weekend has reminded the team however is that testing at our tracks well in advance is a necessity. I am amazed at how fast both Mike and Dave adapt to their machines as they change from track to track, so with some more testing before the next round I am confident we will be well prepared for almost anything thrown at us” Team Morse Racing will compete next in round five of the MRA series at La Junta Raceway on July 16th & 17th.