Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

Jamie Stauffer has reached an agreement to join the Yoshimura Suzuki team and race the GSX-R600 left vacant by Aaron Yates in AMA Supersport, say sources close to Stauffer’s current team, Libasci Racing/Ducati-Aprilia of Oceanside.

Speaking at California Speedway April 4, Stauffer told Roadracingworld.com he was in discussions with several different AMA teams regarding the remainder of the 2003 season, but any possibilities were contingent on him backing up the seventh-place finish he got in the Daytona Supersport race at Fontana.

Stauffer qualified ninth at California Speedway on the Yamaha YZF-R6 he built and was racing for ninth in the final when he dropped out of the race on lap 14 of 17, resulting in a 38th-place finish. Stauffer is now 16th in the Supersport Championship, 45 points behind class leader Jamie Hacking.

Evidently, the performance was enough for Yoshimura Suzuki, who reportedly signed Stauffer and plan to have the 23-year-old Australian report for duty at the AMA team test at Road Atlanta next week.

Attempts to reach Stauffer or a representative from Yoshimura Suzuki were unsuccessful at post time.

Stauffer’s current team does not plan to stand in the way of the young Aussie’s promotion, and at California Speedway, Alan Libasci, Team Owner/Manager of Libasci Racing, actually expressed pride in the possibility that Stauffer might get picked up by a factory team.