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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127564
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Britt Turkington (100) leads Jamie Bowman (lx) en route to one of his four wins.
Tu~~ng!~nand Wells get it ri
ht
By Henny Ray Abram's
DAYTONA BEACH, FL, FEB 26-28
he amateurs come to the AMA/
CCS weekend at Daytona International Speedway to win races
and get noticed with an eye toward next
year. The pros come to learn with an eye
toward next week when the races mean
a whole lot more.
The rider who learned the most this
weekend had to be Suzuki's Britt
Turkington. The Texan not only won four
races, actually three, but also finished second twice and, more than that, proved
that the new Suzukis were a force to be
reckoned with.
"The CCS en try fee is cheap track time
for Daytona," Turkington said at the end
of his very successful weekend. "You'd
need a fuJI year to totally dial a bike in
right, but the track is starting to come in
and it was a lot better today (Sunday)
than it was yesterday when it was cold
and windy."
The difference, and how much
Turkington learned, was apparent in his
lap times. In his first win, Saturday's
seven-lap, 25-mile Expert Middleweight
Supersport, Turkington's average lap
time aboard his Suzuki GSXR600 was
two-minutes, 4.783-seconds and he beat
Jason Pridmore to the line by over six
seconds. In his final win, Sunday's
Expert Middleweight Superbike,
Turkington's average lap time dropped
to 2:03.628.
In between those two wins came a pair
of victories aboard the Suzuki GSXR750.
On Saturday he beat Christian Gardner
by over five seconds in the Expert
Heavyweight Superbike and, on Sunday,
led Team Valvoline Suzuki's Kurt Hall
across the line in the Expert Heavyweight
Supersport, winning by over eight seconds. Vance & Hines Yamaha's Colin
Edwards was leading that race, but
pulled off the track on the final lap while
leading Turkington's teammate Thomas
Stevens because both were using the race
for track time on their superbikes and
would have been disqualified.
T
14
Turkington was on his Supersport-spec
machine.
In addition to the four wins, there
were a pair of seconds on Friday in the
14-1ap, 50-mile Expert Solo GTO and
Expert Solo GTU races, with Turkington
finishing 2534 seconds behind Yamaha of
Leesburg's Damian Weber in the latter
race.
"Overall we learned a lot from these
races," said Turkington, who had to start
from the eighth row in two of his wins.
"The bike worked good and I dropped
my lap times. We're in good shape for the
pro events coming up."
Turkington had a chance for more
wins, but scratched from his last race of
the weekend, the Unlimited GP. That one
went to Stevens, the Floridian taking the
lead from the sixth row on the second lap
for a runaway win in front of Christian
Gardner.
Gardner had gotten his lone win of the
weekend in the 25-lap, 50-mile Expert
Solo GTO, a race with a wide variety of
equipment Gardner won on his Yamaha
OWOl Superbike, Turkington ~as second
on his Supersport-mount, Two Brothers
Racing's Rick Kirk was third on a Honda
CBR900, and Southwest Motorsports'
Chris D'Aluisio was fourth on a Yamaha
TZ25O.
Riding a Yamaha TZ250 with a plain
white fairing, because he'd just taken
delivery and hadn't had time to have it
painted, Canadian Jon Cornwell won the
Expert Lightweight GP after a thrilling
fight with Bad Boyz Racing's William
Quinn. Cornwell used his experience to
break away from Quinn exiting the chicane on the final lap, denying him the
draft. Still, the margin at the line was
.298-0f-a-second one of the closest finishes of the weekend.
After a IS-year lay-