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Championship Cup Series
Competition's Joe Ribeiro.
That more hard -fought win came in the
Expert Heavyweight Superbike class, the
ninth of I I races on Saturday.
McGarity hooked up with Arclight
Suzu ki's Scott Harwell and Champion
Racing Team's Marco Martinez from the
very start. He and Harwell went back and
forth with Martinez slightly off the back .
On the final lap Martinez closed right up
in tum one, taking the fight to the leaders in
the chicane . Coming out, it was Martinez
leading Harwell and McGarity, the
Georgian in the same position as Miguel
Duhamel in last year's Daytona 200 . And
like Duhamel, McGarity timed his pass perfectly to speed by for the win, his second of
the day.
"I figured if I could get them on the last
lap, I'll pull a double draft , and it worked,"
McGarity said. McGarity also took a fourth
in Friday's Expert GTO race.
Harwell held on to second with
Martinez third.
"I didn't know if I should lead the last
lap," Martinez said.
Floridian Derek Keyes came close to
winning a trio of Expert races on his Suzuki,
starting with the very first race of the
weekend, Friday's Expert GT Lights. From
there he went on to take second to Michael
Mills in the Expert Thunderbike race at the
end of the day. On Saturday he came back
to win the Expert Lightweight Superbike
race , taking the lead early and breaking
away with a little over a lap to go , only to
get drawn back in to the fight with Williams
H-D/Buell's Randy Rega.
"We were going at it the whole time,"
Keyes said of his battle with Rega. "That
thing's fast. We were working pretty good
36
MARCH 10, 2004
in the draft together."
Rega's problem was gearing ,
his Buell hitting the rev-limiter on
Daytona's long runs.
Third went to Prieto Racing's
Michael Mills, all by himself at the
end.
Brothers
HarleySmith
Davidson's Jason Lewis was tops
among the Amateurs, the
Tennessean winning three races
over two days on his second tr ip
to Daytona.
First came Friday's Acropovic
GTU Amateur race , where Lewis
didn't have a problem getting the
lead but had a problem keeping
it. Lap after lap he had problems
with his braking in the
International Horseshoe, then
had to spend the rest of the lap
catching back up. He was in third
when the 30-minute race was
red -flagged on the eighth lap, setting up a five-lap final.
Given a second chance, Lewis
made the most of it, taking the
lead early on and pulling away when the
race was red -flagged again, this time for
good. James Ptak was alone in second, with
Ernie Dix alone in third on the Washington
Cycle Works Yamaha.
Saturday morning began with Lewis
again out front, this time by the second lap
of the Amateur Middleweight Supersport
race. He and Dix broke away, Lewis with
the clear power advantage on the banking.
By the sixth and final lap he had over three
seconds on Dix, who lamented his power
deficit.
"He's got a little horsepower or something," Dix said. "I couldn't catch him on
the straights at all."
Lewis later showed his strength in the
Amateur Middleweight Superbike race. In
the lead by the second lap, Lewis had a lead
then lost it, the pack closing up at the
halfway po int.
His advantage was clear on the East
Banking, where he powered his Honda
CBR-6ooRR away from the Yamaha of Ptak,
coming from the ninth row, and Team
Celtic Racing's Brian McCormack, the
Irishman starting from row eight in his first
trip to Daytona on his first trip to America.
On the final lap, Lewis was able to pull
away to a second win, Ptak taking
McCormack on the run to the flag.
"The best battle I had all weekend,"
Ptak said, adding that he only decided on
Saturday morning to enter the class. "It was
kind of a last-minute decision ."
McCormack won his first race in the
United States on Sunday morning , taking
his Suzuki GSX-R6oo to victory over the
GSX-R I000 of Carl Cohen in red flagshortened
Amateur
Speedscreen
Unlimited GP race. McCormack was in the
CYCLE NEWS
lead, Cohen closing, when the race was
topped on the fourth lap, scoring reverting
to the end of the th ird with McCormack in
front . McCormack came to Daytona at the
invitation of fellow Irishman Des Conboy
and didn't have a motorcycle to race when
the weekend started .
Ptak had a pair of seconds and a third
before breaking through with a victory in
Sunday 's Amateur Middleweight Grand
Prix, despite another final row starting
spot.
Ptak made his way to third late on the
first lap from 25th on the grid, then closed
on the leaders. His first assault came on the
third lap when he made a run at Ernie Dix
out of the chicane and onto the banking.
Dix held him off that time, but not a lap
later when he made a clean pass entering
the chicane .
Ptak was in the lead on the finalwhen he
ran wide in the West End Horseshoe, Dix
briefly in the lead before Ptak retook it on
the back straight.
The run would go to the flag with Ptak
having the motor to hold Dix at bay, Kenny
Rodriguez finishing third.
"I wanted to win before I left," Ptak said.
"I knew he was right there. I kept trying my
hardest."
Dix said both had made mistakes on the
final lap, but ultimately, "I had nothing for
him," he said.
Floridian Hilton Geartner won a pair of
races, along with a second-place finish. For
the first few laps of the Amateur Formula
40 race, Gea.rtner had company. But as the
race wound down, Geartner asserted his
dominance en route to his first win .
Second went to Kevin Shreve, with
Ultimate Cycles' Keith Joy (Hon) third .
Geartner pitted his Suzuki GSX-R750
against a field of 600s and 1000s in
Amateur
Heavyweight
Saturday's
Supersport race. In the early going, he was
second to Dix, the New Jerseyan aboard a
Yamaha R6. Never far away, Geartner
briefly took the lead on the final lap only to
see the race red -flagged. He was given sec ond to Dix with Champion Racing's Jose
Moreau third on his Suzuki GSX-R750.
Geartner and Moreau squared off late
on Saturday in the Amateur Heavyweight
Superbike race . Geartner took the lead on
the fourth lap en route to victory.
Geartner said he changed his strategy after
losingthe earlier race due to the red flag.
"This race I went for it, and it worked,"
he said.
Moreau was second, with Carlos Vargas
taking third from Charles Northey on the
final lap.
eN
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAl. SPlfDWAY
DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA
RESUlTS: FEBRUARY 27-29, 2004
(ROUND 1)
Friday
AM GT LIGHTS , I. 0..... Maney (Due) ; 2. Guenther
Weick (Suz); 3. RobertTayIo< (Suz); 4. john Foster (Suz); 5.
""
TonaBOhop (Suz).
EX GT LIGHTS: I. Derek Keyes (Suz); 2. Kurt Mille<
(Bue); 3. Damon Dani10wla (Suz); 4. Stephen 50".;, (Suz); 5.
Dav;d White (Suz).
AM GTO, I. Kev;n Shreve (Suz); 2. Bm Keres; 3. Carl
Cohen (Suz);4. ilDbert D'Angelo (Suz); S. Jeff Holton (Suz).
EX GTO: I. 5""" R.pp (Suz); 2. john H_ (Suz); 3. L>ny
Peg