Laguna Seca, USA

Round 9 Laguna Seca: SBK Evo Race

Kawasaki’s SBK Evo riders headed to the uniquely challenging Laguna Seca circuit in Monterey on Sunday 13th July to take part in the ninth round of the SBK championship, competing for finishing places in both the overall SBK class and inside the specialised Evo category as well.

Two dry and sunny races allowed David Salom (Kawasaki Racing Team SBK Evo) to finish a fine tenth and a then a season best eighth in the overall SBK races, which equated to both Evo class race wins. David is 12th overall in the Superbike category and comfortably ahead of his closest challenger by 37 points in the Evo class.

Kawasaki’s Ninja ZX-10R is a popular choice for the Evo category and at Laguna Seca several Kawasaki riders scored points, some in both races.

In the first 25-lap event Bryan Staring (Iron Brain Kawasaki SBK Team) was a fine 13th with young French rider Jeremy Guarnoni (MRS Kawasaki) 14th.

Alessandro Andreozzi (Kawasaki Team Pedercini) missed out on an opening race point by one place when he finished 16th, but in the second sprint race, held over seven laps only, Alessandro had a season best ninth place overall and second place ranking in the Evo class.

Guarnoni, Staring and Sheridan Morais (Iron Brain Kawasaki SBK Team) filled the finishing order from 11th to 13th in race two as they boosted their points scores and confidence before the long summer break. Jeremy is third in the Evo rankings, Alessandro is sixth and then Sheridan is seventh.

Unfortunately Luca Scassa (Kawasaki Team Pedercini) was declared unfit to ride in the Laguna Seca round due to previous injuries.

Spain will host the next SBK Evo contests, with raceday on Sunday September 7th at the Jerez circuit in Spain

More, from a press release issued by Kyle Wyman Racing:

Millennium Technologies’ Wyman soldiers through for Laguna Seca success

MACEDON, N.Y. — It was going to take more than a recent knee surgery to keep Millennium Technologies rider Kyle Wyman off the podium at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca this past weekend. Wyman earned a 3rd place finish in Saturday’s AMA Pro Harley-Davidson series race just four days after having surgery to repair a torn meniscus and remove cartilage from the joint.

The New Yorker started the race from third on the grid and battled early for the lead. He then settled into third to bring home the podium result.

“It felt all right,” Wyman said. “It was a pretty lonely race, just watching my pit-board to see the gap between myself and the guys behind me. I was able to start off with the front guys and make the gap to fourth and then about lap 4 I over-revved my bike coming up to the corkscrew. I lost some power there and couldn’t stick with the leaders.”

Wyman’s podium finish rebounded him from his Barber Motorsports Park crash, and moved him up to 6th place in the Harley-Davidson points standings, albeit 40 points adrift of championship leader and Laguna race winner Danny Eslick.

“It just feels good to be back on the podium,” Wyman added. “It’s been a really up and down season. We’ve had a win taken from us by DQ, then another win, then a crash-out, now we’re back on the podium. I’ll take it.”

As for the AMA Pro Daytona Sportbike series race, Wyman had his work cut out for him after a lackluster qualifying effort which put him 20th on the starting grid. However, he found himself in the battle for 10th by the halfway point of the race, ultimately finishing 16th.

“We were behind the 8-ball all weekend on the setup on the Millennium Technologies R6,” Wyman said. “We found a great change Sunday morning before the race, which had us 11th fastest in the warm-up session, but starting from 20th didn’t do us any favors. I made a big mistake on the last lap which cost me a couple positions.”

Wyman’s Laguna DSB result dropped him to 9th in season points standings. The series returns next weekend, July 19-20 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, one that Wyman considers his home track.

“Mid-Ohio is actually the closest AMA track to my home in New York,” Wyman said. “I’m looking forward to some better track familiarity and this short week to rest my knee. I feel I will be 100% by Saturday morning and ready to make a charge in both classes for all my sponsors like Ballistic Performance Components and Lucas Oil. There’s so much support for the KWR team and I want to make them proud in Ohio next week.”

To follow Kyle’s career, visit www.facebook.com/kylewymanfans

To build a bike as fast as Kyle’s, visit www.mt-llc.com

More, from a press release issued by Riders Discount Triumph:

MONTEREY, Calif. – With only nine points separating the top three AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike Championship contenders at the conclusion of the AMA Pro Road Racing FIM Superbike World Championship, GEICO Motorcycle U.S. Round, the final two rounds are sure to provide some exciting racing with Mid-Ohio coming up in short order.

Danny Eslick finished on the podium for the first time since the DAYTONA 200 as the lead Triumph behind Lewis and Beach. Danny and championship leader, Jake Gagne, swapped positions numerous times in an exciting battle for 3rd that ultimately came down to a drag race to the finish line.

“What can I say? Jake Lewis rode a phenomenal race,” said Danny. “It feels good to be back on the podium again. I can’t thank Brian Gibson and all of the Riders Discount crew for all of their hard work. We had a solid race with the lead pack but I wasn’t able to run their pace and found myself in a dogfight with Gagne. We swapped positions back and forth a few times before I finally beat him in the drag race to the finish line!”

“Solid weekend for the crew and Danny at Laguna Seca,” said Brian Gibson, Riders Discount Triumph team owner. “Being such a new team at the top level in the US, it felt good to see the team gel and the bike constantly improve. I am looking forward to backing up what we learned with a strong showing this coming weekend at Mid Ohio.”

The Buckeye SuperBike Weekend at Mid-Ohio is this coming weekend, July 19-20.

Riders Discount would like to thank all of our sponsors: Triumph Motorcycles, Speed and Strength, Akrapovic, Attack Performance, Renthal, Andrew Swenson Design, Zero Gravity, GB Racing, Capit Performance, Motion Pro, Saddlemen, DynoJet, DrippinWet.com, Fast Frank Racing, Spiegler, Castrol, and Sharkskinz Racing Bodies.

About RidersDiscount.com:

Riders Discount (www.ridersdiscount.com) is an online retailer of quality powersports gear, apparel, and accessories. A company founded by racers, RidersDiscount.com ships equipment for every riding style to customers worldwide, backed by knowledgeable sales team and excellent customer service.

Triumph Motorcycles (www.TriumphMotorcycles.com) is the British motorcycle marque that produces a wide range of sport, cruiser, adventure and touring motorcycles. From the storied Bonneville to the class-leading Speed Triple and Daytona 675R, Triumph offers a blend of design, character and performance that result in truly distinctive motorcycles. First established in 1902 and now located in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England, Triumph has always set the pace for category-winning machines. The company is solely owned by Bloor Holdings Ltd. and its North American operations are based in Atlanta.

Danny Eslick (http://www.eslick69.com) The Ultimate experience for all fans of Danny Eslick Racing. Check back often for all the latest news, photos, videos, and rider profiles.

More, from a press release issued by Galfer USA:

Fillmore, Gagne Top Galfer USA Riders at Laguna Seca

Oxnard, Calif. – The AMA Pro RoadRacing series joined forces with the FIM Superbike World Championship the weekend of July 11-13 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Galfer USA’s roadracers amassed seven top-ten finishes in just two races.

In SuperBike, KTM/HMC pilot Chris Fillmore matched his previous best finish of the season, finishing 5th on the No. 11 KTM RC8R.

Daytona SportBike was the class where Galfer USA racers really showed off their skills. Jake Gagne led the way, finishing 4th on the No. 32 Red Bull/RoadRace Factory Yamaha YZF-R6. Gagne is also leading the way in the championship with a five-point advantage.

Dane Westby gave Gagne a challenge, eventually finishing 5th on the No. 00 Yamalube/Westby Racing R6.

Apex Racing’s Jason DiSalvo was 7th on the No. 40 Triumph Daytona 675, while his teammate Elena Myers was 12th on her No. 21 entry. Behind DiSalvo, Blake Young gave GN Gonzalez Racing an 8th place finish on the No. 79 Yamaha YZF-R6.

Jake Zemke was 9th on the No. 98 GEICO Honda CBR600RR, and he was followed across the finish line by the No. 35 Team H35 Honda of Benny Solis in 10th.

Kaleb De Keyrel made his Daytona SportBike debut at Laguna Seca, finishing 17th on the No. 51 De Keyrel Racing Yamaha YZF-R6. De Keyrel usually competes in SuperSport, where he currently sits at 5th in points.

From the track to the street, Galfer USA distributes the full range of Galfer brake components. Galfer’s wave rotors, brake pads and brake lines provide more consistent, predictable braking and increased modulation, giving all riders a competitive edge when it comes to stopping like a pro. Keep up with Galfer USA at facebook.com/GalferUSA and follow @GalferUSA on Twitter and Instagram.

More, from a press release issued by Ruthless Racing:

ESLICK WINS FIRST FOR RUTHLESS RACING INC AND FOR HIMSELF IN MONTEREY CALIFORNIA JULY 2014

The Ruthless Racing Inc. / Trev Deeley Motorcycles sponsored ride of Danny Eslick wins it’s first National AMA Pro Racing Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson XR1200 race! The weekend at Laguna Seca Raceway went well for the #69 Danny Eslick. He found his flow right from the beginning of the weekend and carried it throughout the race ending up on top the box by race end . Eslick tells after the race, “I felt solid all weekend and just had no concerns so I just went for it….and it paid off! I can’t thank the Ruthless Team enough for giving me such a solid bike! To Glen and Bill Veatch, Thomas Morin and John Cornwell (Ohlins Suspension) …thank you!” Danny is now leading the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson XR1200 Series going into this weekends round at Mid Ohio.

Darren James, Team Owner and #229, finished 9th. He unfortunately rode a lonely race after losing the group ahead. “I put in my fastest laps of the weekend but just didn’t get it together right off the start! It’s tough when you can’t make up any ground on anyone so I just rode the best I could.” Darren is now in 11th overall. Darren said about Danny, “We are so proud of him as we know how busy he is this year. He’s been all over the map,literally, but he still is able to show up and perform. We do what we can to make it as easy for him as possible and he just rides is ass off every time! The entire team is ampted up and ready to ride at Mid Ohio!”

Ruthless Racing Inc. would like to say a big thank you to Trev Deeley Motorcycles in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada. To Arai helmets, Dragon Allliance, Flexi-glass, Etnies, Twist Sport Conditioning and 2Under Undrwear (www.2undr.com) . Danny wants to add from himself a huge thanks to Speed and Strength, Shoei and Alpinestars. Ruthless Racing Inc. will be at Mid Ohio this week July 18-20, 2014.

More, from a press release issued by Tuned Racing:

FIM Superbike World Championship

Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

Salinas, CA

Tuned Racing competed in the AMA Pro Racing Daytona Sportbike races during the FIM Superbike World Championship weekend at Laguna Seca. In qualifying on Saturday, Bryce Prince qualified 13th, with Jason Aguilar 17th. This was Jason’s first AMA Daytona Sportbike race as he was invited for being one of the top Supersport riders. The deep pool of talent was a real challenge for Jason.

In the race, both riders dropped positions in the early laps but worked their way back up. Bryce was running in 14th, with Jason in 20th after the first lap. Bryce moved up to 12th and was competing for 10th in a tight pack of 8 riders. Jason was able to catch the pack, but a huge wheelie coming out of Turn 11 caused him to lose contact again. It was frustrating for both Bryce and Jason as their fastest laps were faster than most of the pack of riders that were battling for the 10th place position. After a couple of mistakes, Bryce and Jason finished 15th and 18th respectively.

While the finishes were personally disappointing for the riders, the talent who finished ahead of them was a who’s who of top talent. Bryce and Jason will be heading for Lexington Ohio this coming weekend for the Buckeye SuperBike Weekend at Mid-Ohio.

Tuned Racing thanks all its sponsors for their support:

Tuned Industries, Graves Motorsports, Dunlop Tires, Solarmax Technology, Galfer Brakes, Worxxx Performance and Machine, Drive Systems USA, Torco Advanced Lubricants, OFD Racing, Motoyard.com, Let’s Ride Trackdays, Zero Gravity Racing Corporation, Dynojet, VNM Sportgear, EFSigns.com, SBKPaint.com, Optimal Racing Bodywork, SpeedAngle, Shorai Batteries, ACT Leathers, NEXX-USA, and Onyx Oil Service.

Jason Aguilar also thanks his personal sponsors: RS Taichi, Moto Liberty, AXO, Vortex Racing, Impact Safe-T Armor, Spider Grips, HT Moto, GPR Stabilizers, Troy Lee Designs, and Chicken Hawk Racing.

More, from a press release issued by RoadRace Factory:

Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Monterey, CA

Coming into round four of the AMA Pro Road Racing series, the team was optimistic about their chances to make a spectacular showing in front of the world audience. This round was to be shared with the World Superbike riders and everyone was anxious to see how the team would perform at the technical Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in front of the international audience. After a decent weekend at Barber, the team was looking to keep on a positive trajectory that would boost them through the remaining three rounds of the season. Unfortunately, things don’t always go according to plan and sometimes, the early morning fog, doesn’t always clear up.

Race Report

GoPro Daytona SportBike

Corkfused…

The World Superbike weekend is an odd weekend for the AMA Teams. Not only are the teams relegated to limited track time the crews also have to hustle in order to put up the pits and tear them down each session. It’s a lot of energy towards what amounts to very little track time. However, it is Laguna and it’s the only west coast round, so everyone was excited and wanting to put on a great display for the World Superbike audience.

On Friday’s practice session, Jake Gagne was at the top of the timing charts for most of the session. He was feeling good and the bike was performing well. Some new components (put on after Barber) had yet to be fully tested and the practice session proved a perfect testing environment. Tomas and his crew were feeling good about their chances as Tomas loves Laguna and has a history of going fast around the circuit and this was his first time around with a fully prepped DSB bike under him.

Going into the first qualifying session however, Tomas’ crew had made some changes to the machine and for the first time this season Tomas was smiling saying that was feeling really good on the machine. His times had him well within reach of the top five as the top ten where only separated by a little over a second. Meanwhile, Jake’s crew made only minor adjustments to his machine and once again, Jake was running at or near the top of the timing sheets. Still though, there was a lingering feeling that something just wasn’t going right. As is normal, Jake was consistently improving his times, but other riders were doing the same at a quicker pace and when the session was over, Jake would be in a provisional fifth place while Tomas was back in ninth.

For the one and only on track session of the day on Saturday, the crews of both Jake and Tomas had made some changes that were confident would place their riders firmly at top the timing sheets. For Jake, the changes seemed to have worked. He was immediately quick and by the time the short session was over, Jake had moved his RoadRace Factory / Red Bull Yamaha R6 to P2 for the start of the race. On the other side of the pit, Tomas and his crew were scratching their heads as some form of mechanical gremlins had appeared. The guys spent most of the session in and out of the pits; this inconsistent pace is a determent to running consistently fast lap times. When the session was over, Tomas was back in P10. The team quickly rolled his machine into to the transporter and immediately began the hunt for the gremlins.

With limited time to ensure the changes were good, Sunday morning brought out a quick 20-minute warm-up session. Jake and his crew went about the business of eking out the last few ounces of speed from his bike, while Tomas and his crew set about to see if the changes were effective. Unfortunately, the issues that plagued him the day before, were still present and there was only a limited amount of time to resolve them before the race.

As the riders lined up for their one race of the weekend, it was a guessing game to see if all issues had been resolved. Tomas admitted later, that on the warm-up lap he could tell the issues were still there and he didn’t feel he would have the pace. Jake was focused at grabbing the hole shot and staying up front. Flags were dropped and the riders took off over the rise for race action. Gagne was able to get a good start and was riding with the leaders for much of the opening laps. Tomas was circulating in the second pack of about 8 riders.

By mid-race, Jake was embroiled in a battle with Triumph rider Danny Eslick. The pair would battle it out all race long for the final podium position as fellow Yamaha riders Jake Lewis and JD Beach were pulling a gap on battling Eslick and Gagne. Meanwhile, Tomas was leading the chasing pack riders a few seconds off the pace. Tomas lead the pack and seemed to be holding his own, unable to pull a gap but no one was able to mount a challenge. Clearly he was riding around whatever issues he was having.

Coming down to the wire, the battle with Jake and Danny was heating up. With several passes by each rider lap after lap, it was clear it would come down to the final few corners. From the pits, you could see they were side by side coming down through the corkscrew and through Rainey curve. Out of Turn 11, Eslick got into the corner first and Jake had to adjust his line slightly and that allowed the Triumph rider a better drive off the corner and Danny would edge out Jake by only a few tenths of a second at the line. The drama would completely unfold however for Tomas. As the pack he was leading for most of the race headed into the final corner, a slower rider caused the group to check up and a chain reaction of bumping and braking would ensue. Tomas would be the unfortunate victim of the last corner as he as hit and taken down into the gravel. He would remount and finish the race in 22nd place.

Jake Gagne – 1st in Standings

“Definitely wasn’t what had hoped for. Got off to a decent start but I was struggling a little bit with the bike. I was up there in third and doing ok. After a several laps I came up to some lappers in Rainey (Curve) and almost ran off the track. After that the top two guys had a good gap and then I got into a battle with Danny (Eslick) and we went back and fourth the last couple of laps. Ended up fourth which isn’t what we wanted, but we have Mid-Ohio next weekend and we’ll redeem ourselves.”

Tomas Puerta – 12th in Standings

“What can I say? This is a weekend to forget. I was feeling competitive on Friday and was hoping to do good here. But something happened with the bike and everyone is trying to figure it out. For me, I feel like I didn’t even race here, this weekend didn’t happen and I’m just looking forward to Mid-Ohio. I know my team will fix the problem and we’ll be ready for Mid-Ohio for sure.”

The Final Word – Danny Walker

“Hey, sometimes this happens in racing. You can’t win them all and once in a while, things just go sideways on you. This is Laguna and it’s a hard weekend for everyone because you can’t really get into any kind of rhythm and I know the guys busted their butts. Sometimes in racing things just happen, all you can do is find out why they did happen and ensure that they don’t happen again. I’m confident that we’ll be back running strong for Mid-Ohio and if I know the guys, they’ve already found the issues with Tomy’s bike and they’ll get it fixed. Onward to Mid-Ohio!”

More, from a press release issued by Motosport.com/Meen Yamaha:

Morgan Hill, CA (July 16th, 2014) – MotoSport.com Meen Yamaha rider Jake Lewis wins his first Daytona Sportbike race at Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway, during the FIM World Superbike Championship weekend, presented by Geico Motorcycle.

Lewis kicked off the weekend capturing the provisional pole during Saturday’s qualifying, yet unfortunately ended fifth during final qualifying. Starting from the second row, Lewis immediately took the lead in turn two and never looked back. Lewis ran a strong pace all race controlling the front pack, running in the top spot from flag to flag. Also posting the fastest lap of the race, the podium victory for the young Princeton Kentucky native was his first Daytona Sport Bike career win.

“This weekend was nearly a perfect weekend for me. I’ve been chasing a win since my last one in 2012 and I am really happy to get my first Sportbike win for myself and the team. I have been working really hard this season and everything is coming together for me and the MotoSport.Com Meen Yamaha team. Now I am looking forward to carrying the momentum into Mid-Ohio and chasing the championship,” says Lewis.