San Jose BMW’s Brian Parriott, Nate Kern and Stephane Mertens won the inaugural Sun Trust MOTO-ST 8 Hours At Daytona on a BMW R 1200 S, completing 228 laps (811.68 miles) of the 3.56-mile infield road course at Daytona International Speedway, in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Team M4 EMGO Suzuki’s Michael Barnes, Geoff May and Chris Ulrich led the race early but lost four laps due to a freak pit stop accident that saw May hit the shift lever and drop the bike into gear while mechanics were removing the rear wheel. The countershaft sprocket flung the chain into the clutch push-rod, breaking it in half and knocking the pushrod seal into the engine crankcase. The team’s mechanics had to replace the clutch pushrod, use a hook to grab the seal and pull it out of the cases and back into position, replace the clutch slave cylinder piston, refill the system with hydraulic fluid, bleed the system and restart the race, for a total stop length of eight minutes. Still, Team M4 EMGO Suzuki worked its way back toward the front with the fastest laps of the race (the team’s best was a 1:56.786) on its SV1000 S but came up 14.856 seconds short of San Jose BMW after eight hours of racing.
A relatively incident-free run helped Vallely Racing 32’s Frank Trombino, Chuck Ivey and Josh Day finish third, five laps behind the winners, on another Suzuki SV1000 S.
Team Hurtbyaccident.com 16’s Mark Crozier, Steven Breckenridge and Nicole Hoffman finished eighth overall and won the Sport Twins class with 216 laps on its Suzuki SV650.
Ducatitoronto.com’s Matt McBride, Pat Barnes and Robert Trottier completed 207 laps on its highly-modified Paul Smart 1000 Limited Edition Ducati, good enough for 14th overall and the Grand Sport Twins (GST) class win.
38 teams were entered in the race, and 34 took the rolling start.
All teams in the race used Pirelli control tires and ran on spec Sunoco race fuel.
All three classes had minimum weight and dynamometer-enforced maximum horsepower limits.
Sun Trust MOTO-ST 8 Hours At Daytona Daytona International Speedway Daytona Beach, Florida October 21, 2006 Provisional Race Results:
Overall:
1. San Jose BMW (Brian Parriott/Stephane Mertens/Nate Kern), BMW R 1200 S, SST, 228 laps
2. Team M4 EMGO Suzuki (Michael Barnes/Geoff May/Chris Ulrich), Suz SV1000S, SST, -14.856 seconds
3. Vallely Racing 32 (Frank Trombino/Chuck Ivey/Josh Day), Suz SV1000S, SST, -5 laps
4. BMW Cycles Of Daytona (Warwick Nowland/John Haner/Mike Ciccotto), BMW R 1200 S, SST, -5 laps, 81.632 seconds
5. Team Zyvax (J.B. Layman/Scott Layman/Steve Green), Suz SV1000S, SST, -7 laps
6. JC Racing (Dave Estok/Brett Ray/Mike Luke), Apr Tuono 1000, SST, -8 laps
7. Vallely Racing 33 (Matt Lynn/Michael Himmelsbach/Joe Riberio), Suz SV1000S, SST, -11 laps
8. Team Hurtbyaccident.com 16 (Mark Crozier/Steven Breckenridge/Nicole Hoffman), Suz SV650, ST, -12 laps
9. Blue Ridge Performance (Derek Keyes/Robert Wilkey/Matt LaPham), Kaw EX650, ST, -12 laps, 24.205 seconds
10. Shaw Racing (Brian Shaw/Rick Shaw/William Meyers), Suz SV1000S, SST, -14 laps
11. Go Big Racing (Ross Milson/Karl Daigle/Paul Glenn), Suz SV650, ST, -15 laps
12. Team Hurtbyaccident.com 69 (Robert Fisher/Ben Matheson/John Linder), Suz SV650, ST, -15 laps, 19.204 seconds
13. Old Pros Racing (John Ashmead/Paul Schwemmer/Justin Filice), Suz SV1000S, SST, -19 laps
14. Ducatitoronto.com (Matt McBride/Pat Barnes/Robert Trottier), Duc PS1000 LE, GST, -21 laps
15. Alliance Motorsports Racing (Jonathan Glaefke/Pedro Bruno/Jeff Hoepnner), Kaw EX650, ST, -21 laps, 5.826 seconds
16. Team Daffy Duc (Adam Faussett/Aaron Barry/Jason Routhier), Duc PS1000 LE, GST, -25 laps
17. Team Motorrad (Frank Shockley/Ivan Messina/Brad Philips), BMW R 1200 S, SST, -25 laps, 3.608 seconds
18. Bell Racing, Inc. (Bruce Stanford/Aaron Bell/Morgan Broadhead), Suz SV1000 S, SST, -25 laps, 81.586 seconds
19. Pair-A-Nines (Jimmy Filice/Nick Cummings/Brian Stokes), Kaw EX650, ST, -27 laps
20. Brookside Racing (Shane Narbonne/David Hudson/Michael Martire), MuZ 1000, SST, 28 laps
More, from a press release issued by Daytona International Speedway:
San Jose BMW Team Wins Inaugural 8 Hours At Daytona
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (October 21, 2006) The San Jose BMW team made history at Daytona International Speedway Saturday, winning a dramatic Inaugural 8 Hours At Daytona. The race was the first event in the SunTrust MOTO-ST Series.
Brian Parriott of Calistoga, Calif., Belgian Stephane Mertens and Nate Kern of Cherry Hill, N.J. held on to take a 14.856-second victory on their No. 46 BMW R1200 over the No. 18 M4 EMGO Suzuki SV1000S of Michael Barnes of Boca Raton, Fla., Geoff May of Gainesville, Ga. and Chris Ulrich of Lake Elsinore, Calif. In addition to claiming the overall win the BMW team took the Buell Motorcycle Company SuperSport Twins (SST) class.
The winning team completed 228 laps of the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway road course.
“Everything went smoothly,” Parriott said. “The settings were perfect, tire wear was phenomenal. The times of our three riders were all within a second of each other, and I think that won the race for us.”
The No. 32 Vallely Racing Suzuki SV1000S ridden by Chuck Ivey, Josh Day of Orlando and Frank Trombino of Kleinburg, Ont. completed the podium overall and in the SST class, five laps behind the winners.
The San Jose BMW ran near the front from the start of the race and found itself in a commanding lead after the No. 83 BMW Cycles Daytona BMW R1200 of John Haner from Austin, Texas, Sydney, Australia’s Warwick Nowland and Mike Ciccoto of Sebastien, Fla. ran out of fuel on track with just over three hours remaining in the race.
The M4 EMGO Suzuki entry fought its way back from outside the top 10 after suffering a gearshift problem on the team’s second scheduled pit stop just over an hour into the race. But the team was back up into second place with an hour and a half remaining and put on a furious charge to catch the leading BMW.
The Suzuki, with May aboard, made its final pit stop for a splash of fuel with 22 minutes to go and trailing by just under 30 seconds. May then lapped over two seconds quicker than the leading BMW as the laps wound down, but was unable to erase the deficit.
“We knew the Suzuki had to refuel one more time, so we weren’t too worried,” said Mertens of the closing laps. “The crew was really fantastic. They made no mistakes.”
The No. 83 BMW Cycles Daytona entry recovered to finish fourth overall and in SST and fifth place went to the No. 7 Team Zyvax Suzuki SV1000S ridden by JB Layman and Scott Layman of Ellijay, Ga. and Steve Green of Knoxville, Tenn.
McBRIDE, BARNES AND TROTTIER TAKE BMW GRAND SPORT TWINS (GST) CLASS WIN
In BMW Grand Sport Twins (GST) action in the 8 Hours At Daytona, Matt McBride, Pat Barnes and Robert Trottier put together a dominating performance, riding the No. 96 DucatiToronto.com Ducati Multistrada to a 25-lap victory over the No. 70 James Gang Racing Buell XB12.
The No. 19 Ducati finished 14th overall, 21 laps behind the overall winner, and held the class lead for all but four laps in the inaugural SunTrust MOTO-ST Series event at the “World Center of Racing.” The team avoided major difficulty and McBride, one of the top riders in the Canadian Superbike series, rode the No. 19 across the stripe to take the victory.
“After the first two stints that we did, after the first hour, we had a lap lead on them so we had a little bit of a cushion,” McBride said. “But in this racing, that little bit of a cushion doesn’t really help. It can do away pretty quickly. We had our head down the whole time. We stuck to the same game plan. We put our heads down every time we went out and tried to do consistent laps and we kept it to the end.”
“It was a really good day,” Barnes said. “Endurance racing has kind of fallen out for a while and it’s come back with the (Sport) Twins. I think there’s a great future with the Twins in racing. Today, they can last and go. Everybody has fun and we went fast.”
“Pat Barnes was actually the creator of the team,” Trottier added. “He called me and I came on board second and then we got a hold of Matt. This bike that we rode is actually a sprint bike for the Canadian Thunder Series that Ducati Toronto built. So I basically threw it together in a week and a half to get it ready for endurance racing. I didn’t realize how much work it takes to prepare for endurance bike and how different they are from a sprint race bike.”
The No. 42 Team Daffy Ducati PS1000LE of Adam Faussett, Aaron Barry and Jason Routhier crossed the finish line second in class but failed the post-race Dyno test and was disqualified. That moved the No. 70 James Gang Racing Buell XB12 of Paul James, John Fox and Greg Avello into second place in the BMW GST class. The No. 70 Buell was also the only other bike to lead the BMW GST class, running at the head of the class field for laps 13-16.
TEAM HURTBYACCIDENT.COM SCORES SPORT TWINS CLASS VICTORY AT DAYTONA
In what turned out to be the tightest and most exciting class battle of the inaugural MOTO-ST Series 8 Hours At Daytona, a speedy late-race pit stop by Team HurtByAccident.com enabled rider Steven Breckenridge to cruise to victory on the No. 16 Jostens/Czaia & Gallagher, PA Suzuki SV650, alongside Floridians Nicole Hoffman and Mark Crozier.
Breckenridge rode the final stint of the race, dueling Robert Wilkey’s No. 17 Kawasaki Team Green Kawasaki EX650 well into the seventh-hour of the eight-hour enduro. Wilkey, running second at the time, brought the No. 17 machine down pit road on lap 209 of the 228-lap event for a late splash of fuel, handing controls to teammate Derick Keys.
One lap later, Breckenridge brought his No. 16 bike down pit road for fuel, hurrying back to the track to maintain the lead. Unfortunately for Keys, he was forced back down pit road just one lap into his stint with apparent issues on the No. 17 bike, enabling Breckenridge to enjoy a 24.205-second cushion once the checkered flag flew. Keys finished second alongside co-riders Wilkey and Matt Lapham. In total, the ST class saw 30 lead changes among four bikes, a testament to the close competition on the track.
“This was just amazing,” said Breckenridge. “The history of this place, the competition on the track, everything. I watch the Rolex Series endurance races on SPEED and see the SunTrust car at the front of the pack. Now, to ride at Daytona in the SunTrust series and win, this was great.”
All three riders on the No. 16 battled for the lead throughout the race, one that saw the lead change hands virtually every lap for eight hours. The No. 16 bike led a race-high 87 laps. Hoffman, one of two female riders in the field, is a NASCAR employee and is certainly relishing her victory at the ‘World Center of Racing.’
“This was a coming home for me,” said Hoffman. “All of my friends and family were here. It was wonderful. The crew did a great job, our pit stops were fast, and I can’t say enough about Mark and Steve. They were outstanding throughout the whole race.”
“It was such a great battle between us and the (No.) 17 guys for about two-and-a-half hours,” added Crozier, from Palm Coast, Fla. “We saw this as sort of a tortoise and the hare situation. We might’ve been lacking a little bit in horsepower, but we know that if our stops were good and we raced smart and clean, we’d be there at the end.”