VOL. 50 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
Josh Hayes was his
dominant self on Sunday,
but a jumped start in
Saturday's race probably
cost him a shot at the title.
Pro Racing officials that procedure
was put in place at the request of the
teams to have a clearer rule and to
prevent the dangerous situation of
riders starting to take off and then
suddenly hitting the brakes when they
realized they launched early, often
just as the other riders are taking off.
Ironically in Sunday's race it looked
to the naked eye that Hayes jumped
the start yet again, but the race was
called a clean start by officials.
The rules for jump starts have
changed several times in recent years
and it appears to many longtime observers that the only way to take the
human element out of the decision
making would be implementing some
type of computerized start monitoring system like that used in Formula
One racing. It's doubtful that AMA Pro
Racing or the teams would be willing
or able to pay for such a system, so
P71
Briefly...
Sheridan Morais. The YART team is
currently 13 points behind the Suzuki Endurance Team heading into
Le Mans – the final round of the
2013 World Endurance Championship. Early in the weekend in New
Jersey, Hayes said whether or not
he would race in France as it depended on where he stood in the
championship. "The Le Mans deal
was a bit of an ambitious announcement," Hayes said. "They called
and asked me if I could come help
and I said I'd love to depending on
how New Jersey goes. No decision
will be made until Sunday." Sunday
night Hayes texted to members of
the press that he was going to race
Le Mans after all.
Josh Hayes likely won't be
Superbike Champion again
in 2013.
controversial jump start calls will likely
continue to be part of motorcycle racing for the foreseeable future.
JD Beach missed Saturday's Daytona SportBike final after suffering a violent near crash and spectacular save in practice Saturday
morning. He went to the hospital
and was clear to race on Sunday.
"I had an almost highside, but I
held on to it, but slammed the tank
twice real hard," Beach explained.
"It hurt my stomach and my chest
real bad. The pain never really went
away and then my chest started
swelling up a little bit. I was kind
of feeling sick. I went out to do the
fan walk and couldn't handle it. So
I went down to the medic and got
checked out and they sent me over
to go get CAT scan and X-ray. It was
all clear. They just told me to ice it.
They said they preferred me not to
ride today [Sunday], but I iced it last
night and the swelling went down."
Beach raced and actually led the
Daytona SportBike race on Sunday
before dropping out with mechanical problems on his RoadRace
Factory Yamaha. You can see his
continued on next page
