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SUPERBIKE AMA SUPERBIKE SERIES ROUNDS 1-2/MARCH 14-15, 2014 DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY/DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA P40 Saturday Hayes was in the lead pack and battling for victory when his R1 stopped running. "Engine failure," Hayes said. "Bummer. It just stopped gain- ing rpm on the banking so I sort of scooted to the left because I wasn't sure. I chopped the throttle and got back in it to see if I could get the rpm back and it wouldn't. At that point it was just 'can I limp it around and just finish the race?' It just got progressively worse. I couldn't keep going any- more. I was either going to keep riding until it stopped and hurt me and made a mess of the racetrack or… it got that bad. I stopped on the backside of the track. It was a bummer, man. Daytona is rough on me. These things happen. My Own Race: 25 DAVID ANTHONY 5 TH /5 TH Aussie Dave Racing's David Anthony had a good Daytona with fifth-place finishes in both races. He missed out on fourth place by a whisker .087 on Friday and by less than half a second on Saturday. Both times it was to Yoshimura Suzuki's Chris Clark. "The whole race is thinking about the finish line," the Australian said. "There's no point in leading any of these bikes through the whole race if they're just going to draft past on the last lap. Not that I really could control anything, but I spent the whole time thinking about it. Anything I planned out on the last lap wasn't going to happen anyway because I messed up the last lap and ran wide [in turn one]. It was pretty much ride around and hope for the best out there. I thought I was lucky because I assumed [Chris] Fillmore was right behind me, but who knows maybe he followed me out there. "The race yesterday [Friday] was pretty boring. Just follow Chris Clark the whole way. I couldn't do anything. Couldn't pull out of the draft, couldn't do anything. His bike just had that little bit more and so I just sat there the whole way." 6 CHRIS CLARK 4 TH /4 TH Last year Chris Clark rode his Yoshimura Suzuki to a ca- reer best of fifth in the first of two races. This year he did one better. He finished fourth on Friday and backed it up with another fourth on Saturday after getting the best of David Anthony and Chris Fillmore in both races. "It was great… two fourths to start off the year and I think third in the championship right now – what an incredible way to kick off the year," Clark said. "The boys out front were just a little bit ahead today. I'm looking forward to getting to the next round and try and keep closing that gap to them and really being in that position to capitalize on any mistakes at the front – as well as trying to close that down and fight there. Both days the first few laps I was really slow getting up to speed. Today [Chris] Fillmore and [David] Anthony were able to get around me in the opening laps and put a second, second and a half gap. From there I was just trying to manage that and once their tires went off a little I could creep up. I knew my bike was pretty good with a used tire and we were slowly taking chunks out. I was lucky that An- thony got around Fillmore there and slowed him down in the infield. It looked like Fillmore had a little bit more speed in the infield. It was tough catching 'em with that. I'm really happy with the result and I've got to thank the boys who worked on the bike this week. We're so close to the po- dium I can feel it." 11 CHRIS FILLMORE 6 TH /6 TH Chris Fillmore and the factory KTM team continue to make progress. At the final round last year at Laguna Seca, he had third place in the bag until running out of fuel on the run to the flag. Daytona is not a place the bike should work well at, but he still managed to finish sixth in both races – with fourth place in his grasp. "I thought I was in a great spot," Fillmore said on Saturday afternoon. "I saw plus zero and I thought it was just [David] Anthony. Me, Anthony and Clark went at it all race yesterday and I thought Clark wasn't in the mix. Come two or three [laps] to go and he [Clark] came buzzing by and that messed all my plans up. Anthony and I went back and forth a couple of times. I thought I had a good plan with him [Anthony] because our bikes were pretty evenly matched and I was figuring out the strategy for the last lap. He [Clark] came by and messed everything up. With drafting two bikes, his [Clark's] is just pulling too much and I can't get a draft on David. If he gets a sniff of Clark's draft, it pulls him away and we end up just sitting there in the line and it kind of ruined the race for me. To walk out of here being that competitive, I think we're sitting pretty good for the rest of the season. So I'm happy with that, frustrated, but glad to get out of here with two sixths." 44 TAYLOR KNAPP 8 TH /8 TH Taylor Knapp showed up at Daytona with a new team – TOBC Racing. He was riding a Suzuki GSX-R1000 without electronics – i.e. traction control and he ended up card- ing a pair of eighths behind Argentina's Diego Pierluigi in both races. "It went alright," Knapp said on Saturday. "A little better than yesterday. The bike is better and better. I think we were the best finishing bike with no electronics. I was struggling in that sense just hanging with those guys in the infield. We're making the bike better and better. I kinda missed the draft, which early on was my plan. I put my head down and broke away, I thought. We are lacking a little bit on power and a little on electronics so I was just trying to do it old school. Seventh would have been nice. Top five is where I really want to be, but a pair of eighths at Daytona… I'll take it."

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