Daytona 200 2012 - # 9 Lives On!

18 year old Elena Myers a SuperSport race winner!

Daytona 2012 went a long way toward erasing memories of the great Daytona disaster of 2011 (major tire failure, lengthly delays, questionable rule enforcment). NASCAR wishes they could have a race week-end like this. Near perfect weather, virtually incident free racing, a comeback for the legendary Triumph marquee and a major race victory for a charming teen age girl.

THE 200: With sunny skies and the temperature in the 70s Joey Pascarella rode the Yamaha YZF-R6 to the winners circle just a split second ahead of runner up Jason Disalvo aboard a Triumph Daytona 675. The #9 Triumph was a tribute to recently deceased Triumph racer Gary Nixon. Nixon took the checkerer flag on a Triumph at Daytona in 1967.

#9 Disalvo honors Nixon

Elena Myers was shuffeled to back to 6th place in the highly competitive 1st Super Sport race on Friday. However, the fast California teen ager was not to be denied in race #2 to become the first woman to win a major motor sports race at Daytona.

Pat Moony has stellar privateer performance.

Another highlight was privater Pat Mooney's performance on the Buell 1125R. Pat qualified 41st, then used all the skill of the seasoned veteran to move up through the field to finish 27th.

Beach racer Billy "Ace" Myers fires '60 BSA Gold Star at the Monument

It all started with Ed Kretz and his Indian on the beach in 1937. In keeping with the tradition of the "beach racers" I began my Daytona 2012 on the beach. I had lunch courtsey of Dick Klamfoth at the Monument which recognizes the past winners. Dick won 3 times on the grueling beach/road course, earning him the title of "King of The Beach".

Check out my photos of

Daytona 2012 on Webshots: http://sports.webshots.com/album/582510236LmaBtO

The Daytona 200- Great Day for The Italians at Daytona!

The Daytona 200- Great Day for The Italians at Daytona

 March 12. 2011

The 70^th edition of America’s most historic motorcycle race has gone into the history books with a spectacular finish seeing 6 riders in competition for 1^st place on the final lap. Two of those riders crashed (uninjured) at the finish line as Jason DiSalvo rode the Ducati 848 to a first ever victory for the Italian manufacturer. All this with a light breeze, temperature in the 70s and a sunny Florida sky. Sounds great, doesn’t it. Well it could have been had it not been for the promoters, AMA Pro Sports & Daytona Motorsports Group who managed a great race to mediocrity.

1. Competitors were provided (sold) tires that were unreliable and unpredictable under race conditions. This after live tire tests, one in January and another “secret test” in February.

2. At about 18 laps, the first of 2 pit stops, front tires showed excessive wear and began to fail. The seriousness of the situation was emphasized when Danny Eslick crashed due to a front tire failure on lap 25 of the scheduled 57 lap race.

3. AMA & Dunlop got together and decided to stop the race (red flag) for a mandatory front tire change for all riders. (can’t argue this from the standpoint of rider safety, but, it should not have been necessary, see # 1)

4. Mounting and changing a front tire should take a maximum of 15 minutes.   Teams that I talked to said they were ready to go in 30 minutes. However the red flag lingered for almost 2 hours. Then the controlling AMA people shortened the race to 142 miles because they did not have enough tires to go the 200 miles, particularly considering the questionable tire reliability.  

5. The long delay allowed for the eventual winning Ducati/DiSalvo team to replace the engine that blew out on the final green lap before the race was stopped.

6. The delay resulted in SPEED TV abandoning the race leaving viewers to a tape delay late night continuation.

Summary: Some great riding and racing overshadowed by poor race management resulted in the Great American Motorcycle Race being relegated to a 15 lap sprint with no live TV coverage. The winner required 2 engines to run for 142 miles. They should have had a DNF/blown engine instead of the winner’s trophy.