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Round 1: Daytona International Speedway Turk+ngton ho ds'em off (Above) Britt Turkington (1) agai n won the 750cc Supersport fina l, but just barely. Here, he Is chased by Jas on Prid more (7), Gerald Roth man Jr. (5) and Tom Klpp (16). (Below) After 15 laps and ovar 50 miles on the famous trac k, lass than two seconds separated the top four riders. Brllt Turki ngton and ru nner-up Jason Prid more _re within two one hundredt hs of each other. ..,.-..,.-..,.--. . , . - . . , . - - - - - . . , . - - - - - - --,,-, By Paul Carruthers Photos by Kinney Jones DAYI'ONA BEACH, FL, MAR. 11 nlast year's 750cc Supersport final at Da y ton a Interna tional Speedway, Yoshimura Suzuki's Britt Turkington had it pretty much his way. The Texan beat Takahiro Sohwa by a second an d a half, using the vic tory as a st e p p in g stone in his march towards th e series title. By the looks of things, the defending cha mpion m ight have it a little tougher in 1994. A second and a half covered the first I four rid ers at the completion of the 15lap, 53.40-mile race, and it appears that while th e Suzuki GSXR750 has improved - so ha ve the othe rs. After a bump-and-run race to the finish, Tu rkington and the Suzuki ended up topping Kinko's Hall 'n Still Racing's Jason Pridmore by a scant .020-of-a-second , with the Kawasakis of Rothman Racing's Gerald Rothman Jr. and Muzzy Kawasaki 's Fred Merkel just as close in th ird and fourth place, respectively. A short breath later came fifth-place finisher Tom Kipp on the second Yoshimura Suzuki. Turkington averaged a record -setting 108.255 mph in completing the race in 29 minu tes, 35.805 seconds. Three d ifferent manufa cturer s were represented in Victory Lane, w ith Pridm ore giving Yamaha it s first s u ch appear an ce in 750cc Su persport raci ng and adding further spice to a series normall y d omi na ted by Suzuki and Kawasaki . It took two tries to get the race completed, as a crash in the West Horseshoe brought. ou t the red flag after the first three laps. At that point, Merkel seemed to ha ve had the advantage and had turned his first-eomer lead into a slight edge over the p ursuing pac k. It was all for nau ght, though, as the red flag came ou t and the race ultima tely restarted. While the mess in the Horseshoe was being tended to, Merkel and the Muzzy Kawasaki crew fitted new Dunlop rubber to both ends of the V<-7. The others opted to stick with wh at they had . On the restart, it was Kipp leadi ng the way in his d ebut rac e with the Yoshimura team. Merkel , Pridmore, Turkington and Rothman followed suit, with Yoshimura Suzuki's Donald Jacks -working hard to make up for a less-thans tellar sta rt. At the end of the opening lap, it was Turkington in the lead wit h Rothma n, Pridmore, Kipp, Merkel and Jacks forming a freight train in which the sextet swapped positions all around the 3.56-mile race track. On the th ird go -r ound, Jacks to ok control at th e fr ont of th e pack. It appeared as though the Floridian had found something the others had not , as he eased awa y ever so slightry during his stint at the front. That lasted for only two laps, however, and ended in a cloud of dust when Jacks crashed the Suzuki in tum one to start the sixth lap. " I just got in there too deep on the brakes and it pushed the front," Jacks said while nursing a banged-up finger. None of the five s till at the front could gamer much of an advantage over the others during the remaining nine laps, but th e top four did manage to give Kipp the shake on the eigh th lap . From there it was a.wild run to the finish, with Merkel riding hard in an effort to make up for a lack of s tra igh t-line speed, and Turkington seemingly th e most comfortable with his ability to run at the front. It came down to the final lap. Pridmore knew he needed to be in front to ha ve a ny chance of win ni ng, a nd he took control heading into th e International Horseshoe to start the final lap . A lap earlier, Rothman had run w ide in the same spot and he was de sperately trying to get back in th e lead drait. Turkington quickly regained the ad vantage over Pridmore, and the Suzuki was able to hold off the Yamaha's attempted draft o n the r u n to th e fla g. Merke l wasn 't so fortunate - he was beaten to the li ne b y Ro thman. St ill , Me rkel's effort was a game on e, con sid erin g it was h is first-e ve r race in the 750cc Supersport class and his first such effort on D.O.T. tires. "As soon as we ge t to a ra ce tra ck with some comers in it, those guys are in trouble," Merkel said later. Rothman had the most con tact wit h the two-time World Champion, but he'd refused to back do wn: "You try to put that out of your mind (that Merkel's a two-time World Champion); he 's just another guy. He was pushing me around and I tried to push him back. He tried to intimidate me a little bit. Going into the chicane, he'd try to push me out on the paint - he'd just shut the door." Turkin gton said he just stuck to the inside of the race track and protected his lead: "If the y passed me, th ey were going around the outsi de," the soon-tobe-32-year-old Texan said. "I knew 1 had the fastest bike ou t there. They were riding ha rd. It's going to be a long year - a l o-race battle." Pridmore was obviously pleased with his ride, especiaIIy considering tha t his