DiSalvo gives Ducati first '200' win

From Daytona International Speedway and AMA Pro Racing

DAYTONA BEACH, FL – Team Latus Motors Racing rider Jason DiSalvo underwent an engine change and survived a furious 15-lap sprint to win the 70th Daytona 200 AMA Pro Daytona SportBike race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday.

DiSalvo, whose victory was his first in the Daytona 200 and also the first for Ducati, was among eight riders jockeying for position in the lead pack during the final 15 laps that followed a pair of red flags.

He held off runner-up Cory West by 0.030 seconds while pole winner and 2006 Daytona 200 winner Jake Zemke settled for third.

The race, which was halted for the first time at lap 27 for a mandatory front-tire change, was reduced from 57 laps to 42 laps setting up a final 15-lap restart.

The red flag gave DiSalvo a second chance at winning the historic motorcycle race.

At the same time the first red flag came out, DiSalvo’s motor expired on his No. 40 Ducati. During the extended red flag, DiSalvo’s crew was able to change engines with the back-up bike and have him prepared to return to the track when racing resumed.

“After what the team went through today with everything with the engine, those guys worked so hard,” DiSalvo said. “That was probably the biggest thrash in all of motorcycle history to get that bike back together and ready to rock on time to start. It’s just amazing. I’m almost speechless as to how I feel about winning this race. I don’t think it has sunk in yet.”

DiSalvo took the lead off the line, but GEICO Powersports/RMR Suzuki’s Danny Eslick had snatched it away even before the pack cleared Turn 1, kicking off an all-out throwdown between DiSalvo, Eslick, Zemke and last year’s race winner, Monster Energy Graves Motorsport Yamaha’s Josh Herrin.

The top four was itself part of an 11-rider freight-train that regularly went three-, four-, and even five-wide on Daytona International Speedway’s bankings, Herrin, Zemke, Eslick, and DiSalvo swapping leads.

Tough breaks came early for two popular riders, Team Cycle World/Attack Performance Kawasaki’s Eric Bostrom, who started the race on his practice engine and suffered a mechanical almost immediately, and Celtic Racing/Fast by Ferracci’s PJ Jacobsen, who crashed out in Turn 1 but was up and okay quickly.

Herrin, DiSalvo, and Eslick took turns yanking the lead from pole-winner Zemke, but the Californian would not be denied, coming back again and again to take his place at the front. Team Cycle World/Attack Performance Kawasaki’s JD Beach, meanwhile, was staging an incredibly impressive performance as a rookie in the class (it was the 2010 SuperSport East champion’s first appearance in Daytona SportBike), riding a strong fifth that kept the leaders well in touch.

The first signs of trouble, though that foreshadowing wasn’t immediately apparent, came with the early, unscheduled pit stop of DNA Roberson Motorsports Ducati’s Jake Holden on lap 12 — a long stop that saw him leave the pits with new rubber on his front wheel.

Herrin and Zemke were the first front-runners to pit, pulling in simultaneously and being released by their crews seconds later. Beach was also in and out fast, and scrambling to hook back up with the leaders.

DiSalvo, Herrin, and Zemke re-formed, Zemke first taking the lead, then ceding it to DiSalvo. In a blink, Herrin and Zemke swooped by DiSalvo on either side as the frontrunners worked lap 23 of 57. Slightly behind, Eslick and Beach ran fourth and fifth, Beach making time on and then passing the veteran rider.

Eslick went down in a nasty crash seconds after, and with 30 laps to go in the 57-lap race, DiSalvo went way wide in a turn and lost significant ground to Zemke and Herrin. Before the section was done, DiSalvo had his hand in the air, signaling his intention to pit. It proved the second sign of trouble, as a red flag was thrown soon after, its cause not immediately apparent.

After telling TV interviewers that his bike had lost a cylinder, DiSalvo added, “Looks like our day is done, but we’ll be back to fight another day.” As the red-flag holding pattern went on, however, speculation began about whether he might re-enter the race after all. Ultimately, AMA Pro officials, in conjunction with official spec tire supplier Dunlop, announced a mandatory front-tire change for all riders.

“Up to today we had a very, very clean weekend with respect to tire performance," said Dunlop’s VP of Motorcycles, Mike Buckley. "The major difference today was that track temperature was in the 48-degree [Centigrade] range, as opposed to the high of 35 [Centigrade] we saw yesterday, and that change was the main contributor to what we saw happen.

“As we witnessed on Lap 12, Jake pitted with an overheated tire. At that point our team got together and began communicating about the issue, and as we rolled into more routine pit stops in the 18- and 19-lap time frame, we saw more overheating on the Yamahas. At that point we got together as a team and made a decision, and reached out to AMA Pro that we wanted to stop the race. And the primary driver for that was obviously safety.

“The big concern was that we had a lot of knowledge about competitors’ race plans, and a substantial amount of the field was going to run one tire for the whole race. We had no choice at that point but to stop the race, pull that specification from competition, and move to a counter-measure backup selection we had in the garage. It was not a tire that was on the original spec sheet, because we wanted to keep a very simple, very clean spec for SportBike and SuperSport, with one front and one rear. Up to that point we had zero issues that led us to think we were going to have the occurrence we had today in the 200.”

As the paddock was fitted with new fronts, DiSalvo’s team began the desperate task of getting him fitted with a new motor. The results having reset to the completion of the previous lap under red-flag rules, P3 was reserved for the Latus rider — if his bike could make it there.

When the riders took to the grid an hour later, DiSalvo was among them and snatched the lead off the start. Within seconds, however, another red flag was thrown in response to several crashes that caused much of the field to take evasive action, a stunning spectacle in DIS’ Turn 1. With one of the bikes having leaked oil, anxious riders waited for a clean track on which a final, 15-lap sprint would be run.

Off the line for the final charge was Zemke, but though the black bike headed into Turn 1 first, both DiSalvo and Herrin chopped across his front wheel and took over the top two positions, the lead trio trailed by West and Beach. Zemke grabbed lead-status back with a late-braking move, only to have it snatched back by DiSalvo, then Herrin, then a triple-bike-drafting Beach, who soared past to take the lead for the first time in that class.

As the top riders continued to dice the next pack of riders caught up to make the race a seven-way battle for the lead. Suddenly, last year’s third-place Daytona 200 finisher made his presence felt in a big way, M4 Suzuki’s Dane Westby pulling up to ride side-by-side with DiSalvo. Then it was Holden’s turn to make an appearance, taking second away and making an immediate bid for the lead, the pack going five-wide across the start-finish line with Zemke ultimately pulling out ahead of Holden, West, Herrin, DiSalvo, Westby, and Beach, less than a second separating the top seven riders. Behind them, Y.E.S. Pat Clark’s Tommy Aquino and Vesrah Suzuki’s Taylor Knapp had drawn close enough to play, an astounding sight with five laps to go.

And then it was DiSalvo with a hand up yet again, the Ducati rider glancing toward the rear of his bike (with a concern that turned out to be unfounded). But just as all attention was focused on DiSalvo, Holden went wide on a turn and was soon seen parked at the West Horseshoe, an occurrence to which Beach responded by taking advantage of the two out-of-commission riders and sliding into fourth. Ahead, Zemke, Herrin, and West swapped position.

As the minutes ran out, the top six were so close it was absolutely anyone’s race. They crossed into the final lap four-wide and headed for the last pass across the banking, everyone chasing West. DiSalvo launched into third ahead of the final banking then slingshot into the lead, shuffling West and Zemke into second and third, respectively. As the podium finishers crossed the line, Knapp and Westby went down right behind them, West having had his brake lever hit after contact with Herrin, and Knapp going down with nowhere else to go, but were soon shown up and okay.

“We got in and out of the pits pretty quick on the one pitstop we had," West said, "then the red flag came out and it just kind of changed the whole ballgame, because once they said it was going to be a sprint race, I knew what I had to do — and there was no being conservative, that’s for sure. I just wanted to get out front because there are so many guys in our class who can win it. I saw the white flag, came around the outside of everybody in Turn 1, and then Westby and Jason came by me going really fast on the brakes — a little too fast, so I checked up and then squeaked back under them. I know you’re not supposed to lead out here, but I saw one lapper I thought I could catch a tow off. Jason dropped low and caught me off guard a little bit. Maybe I could have won it, but I’m just glad I kept my nose clean and brought it home.”

"To come back third was the best we could do," Zemke admitted. "My hat’s off to these guys; they rode a great race. One time I got shuffled back to fourth or fifth and I didn’t really like being back there — too much action for me. This place can bite you, and as you can see there at the finish, it bit a couple of them. You have to really use your head out there. It’s a long race, and we all want to come home in one piece.

"For the most part the boys all rode really good, but I want to commend JD Beach — for a rookie kid coming in here, I think he did a really good job. There were a couple of times we were five-riders-wide on the banking and he was down low, and I was kind of watching him. He could have pulled something that wouldn’t have been very nice, so I just want to congratulate him for being a smart one out with the big boys.”

Race Results
1. Jason DiSalvo (Team Latus Motors Racing) Ducati 848 42 Laps
2. Cory West (Vesrah Suzuki) Suzuki GSX-R600 +0.029
3. Jake Zemke (Project 1 Atlanta) Yamaha YZF-R6 +0.154
4. JD Beach (Cycle World Attack Performance) Kawasaki ZX-6R +0.219
5. Josh Herrin (Monster Energy Graves Yamaha) Yamaha YZF-R6 +0.364
6. Tommy Aquino (Yamaha Extended Service, Pat Clark Sports, Graves, Yamaha) Yamaha YZF-R6 41 Laps
7. Fernando Amantini (Team Amantini) Kawasaki ZX-6R +13.890
8. Cameron Beaubier (Crozier Motorsports) Yamaha YZF-R6 +13.924
9. Santiago Villa (RoadRacingWorld.com Suzuki) Suzuki GSX-R600 +13.959
10. Paul Allison (Triple Crown Industries) Yamaha YZF-R6 +15.144
11. Kris Turner (Turner`s Cycle Racing) Suzuki GSX-R600 +25.724
12. Huntley Nash (LTD Racing Y.E.S Yamaha) Yamaha YZF-R6 +25.836
13. Dane Westby (M4 Suzuki) Suzuki GSX-R600 +25.836
14. Taylor Knapp (Vesrah Suzuki) Suzuki GSX-R600 +25.837
15. Joey Pascarella (Run 1 Racing Motorsports) Yamaha YZF-R6 40 Laps
16. Jason Farrell (Martinez Motorsports) Kawasaki ZX-6R +10.619
17. Tyler OHara (GP Bike Parts Racing) Yamaha YZF-R6 +11.287
18. Melissa Paris (HT Moto Yamaha) Yamaha YZF-R6 +40.984
19. David Sadowski, Jr. (Top Shelf Motorcycles Racing) Ducati 848 +41.017
20. Ricky Orlando (Orlando Racing) Kawasaki ZX-6R +41.124
21. Reese Wacker (Wacker Racing LLC) Suzuki GSX-R600 +41.793
22. Pat Mooney (Pat Mooney Racing) Buell 1125R +43.966
23. Anthony Fania (KSW Racing) Suzuki GSX-R600 +59.589
24. Luiz Cerciari (Cerciari Racing School) Suzuki GSX-R600 +59.952
25. Sam Rozynski (Triple Crown Industries) Yamaha YZF-R6 +1:14.107
26. David McPherson (McNology Racing) Yamaha YZF-R6 +1:15.069
27. Lyles Sanders (Sanders Racing) Yamaha YZF-R6 39 Laps
28. Giuseppe Messina (Metric Devil Moto) Yamaha YZF-R6 +14.338
29. Scott Decker (Phantom Freightlines Racing) Suzuki GSX-R600 +22.845
30. Ray Hofman (RayBren Racing) Honda CBR600RR 38 Laps
31. Jake Holden (Roberson Motorsports) Ducati 848 37 Laps
32. Russ Wikle (Wikle Racing) Suzuki GSX-R600 27 Laps
33. Matthew Sadowski (Top Shelf Motorcycles Racing) Ducati 848
34. Barrett Long (Longevity Racing) Ducati 848 25 Laps
35. Danny Eslick (Richie Morris Racing) Suzuki GSX-R600 24 Laps
36. PJ Jacobsen (Celtic Racing) Ducati 848 18 Laps
37. Les Moscariello (Desmomaniacs Ducati) Ducati 848 10 Laps
38. Eric Bostrom (Cycle World Attack Performance) Kawasaki ZX-6R 2 Laps
Race Time: 3:49:52.886
Margin of Victory: 0.029
Best Race Lap: Jason DiSalvo (1:50.130)