Cycle News

AMA GO PRO DAYTONA SPORTBIKE SERIES VOL. 51 ISSUE 11 MARCH 18, 2014 P63 Factory/Red Bull crew," Gagne said. "These guys worked so hard in the offseason and to pay them back with a podium is great. It was a pretty big pack like we expected, and I just wanted to stay there. I figured once we got to the first pit stop, it would sepa- rate a little bit. After the first pit stop, it was like five or six guys. I was definitely struggling in the in- field, and it was everything I had all the time just to hang onto the back of these guys. Luckily, the boys built me a fast bike because I could pull with these guys on the banking." Up-and-comer Lewis learned a lesson in this year's 200. He was a contender, but he knows that Briefly... visiting doctors on Monday to de- termine a recovery plan. "Hopefully it will be a situation where he goes through a few weeks of therapy and then can resume training. I think he'll be okay for the next round." Westby was a true sportsman af- ter the race. He walked over to the Castrol Triumph team and person- ally apologized to all the members. He'd profusely apologized to Jason DiSalvo as the two stood on the cor- ner-working island outside turn one before being checked out by med- ics. "I'm not exactly sure, but I think I grabbed one too many downshifts going into turn one and went down to first gear and that was all she wrote," Dane Westby said after his crash out of the lead pack in the 200. "The bike started fishtailing. I was just praying that it would come back in line and I could collect it. Ja- son [DiSalvo] was right there and I don't know how much that had to do with us getting together. I went to the Castrol Triumph pits to express my apologies. It's just my bad. Shit hap- pens. I'm just going to have to get over it. I'm thankful to still be walking. I'm just a little sore. The pride's prob- ably the worst." The factory Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha R6s didn't have the acceleration and top-speed advantage they did last year when Cameron Beaubier broke away from the field in the 200. Most pointed to the new DSB rules that no longer allow exotic electronic engine management systems. Day- tona SportBike now has a price cap of $5000 for Engine Control Sys- tems, and the ECU "must be either: was feeling it, mainly my neck that I broke about six years ago was killing me." 98 JAKE ZEMKE 8TH One of the former Daytona 200 winners in the field, Zemke was back on a Honda, but found his machine was a bit lacking on the high banks. "It was about the race I expected," Zemke said. "We've been down on speed quite a bit all weekend so coming out of here with a top 10 was about the best we could do and I don't show up at the racetrack to race for a top 10, so I'm a little bit disappointed, but I've got confidence on the boys to get it figured out. There's no way we should've been this down on power." 74 BOSTJAN SKUBIC 9TH Skubic, the rider from Slovenia, has been making the long trek to Daytona throughout the 2000s. He scored an eighth in 2008. This time around he scored his second best finish this year on his Inotherm Racing Yamaha and overall was happy with his race. This is his 14th Daytona in a row. "It was very fun," Skubic said. "For me it felt like a short race. I'm extremely happy with my riding, maybe not with the results, since it's not my best ever Daytona. It was not a normal Daytona. Generally you could count on half of the fleet not finish- ing the race, which was not the case today. That's bad for me, but I'm really happy for everybody coming to Daytona and not having any mechanical, not having DNF, not having crashes. It's a realistic result." The race for victory ended up coming down to four riders: Eslick (69), Westby (00), Jason DiSalvo (40) and Jake Gagne (32), but that group whittled down to two when Westby and DiSalvo crashed together. continued on next page

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