Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 25 JUNE 24, 2014 P57 ing man? They're up there. Go!' Anything could have happened. I made my move and made it stick. There was some contact with Bobby [Fong] there, so I was a little afraid to make it, but I made it stick, so here we are. I was just able to stick it in there and block them. I was a little slow in some parts of the track, but I was really good in the 'Ala- bama Rollercoaster,' as they call it. It wasn't the clean pass that I would have liked, but you know, it stuck so… I've just got to flip a switch. Sometimes the switch is on, sometimes it's off." You needed a quick writing hand to take note of all the action on the final lap. Bobby Fong, who had such a brilliant race on Sat- urday to score his first podium of the season, made a mistake and ended up crashing out of the lead group. Westby emerged from the chaotic final lap in control. Jake Lewis and Jake Gagne were in range had Westby made a slip, but he didn't and the double zero Yamaha crossed the line .235 of a second in the lead over Lewis and Gagne, who were practically side-by-side at the line. Jason DiSalvo, after missing Saturday's race with engine issues, came home fourth. Westby's pair of victories reig- nited his hopes of getting back into the championship battle; something he thought was out of the question coming into the Alabama weekend. Conversely, Garrett Gerloff's championship hopes took a ma- jor hit at Barber. In Saturday's race Gerloff led the first two laps, but then Lewis got by and Gerloff ran into the back of the new leader after Lewis got out of shape over the bends in turn 10. It resulted in Gerloff crash- ing and also taking out series leader Gagne, who was follow- ing closely behind and had no- where to go. Fortunately for Gagne his pair of wins and a second-place fin- ish leading up to Barber served him well. The Roadrace Fac- tory/Red Bull Yamaha rider bounced back with a third in Sunday's wild race and survived the topsy-turvy Barber double- header with his points lead over Danny Eslick intact, albeit cut nearly in half, from 22 to 12 points. MotoSport.com/Meen Yama- ha's Lewis also inched his way ever closer in the standings. It was a breakthrough weekend of sorts for Lewis. He scored his first DSB pole in a hectic two- day format and is now third in points in spite of tumbling in the race on Saturday while battling for the lead. He quickly picked up his bike and charged back to ninth. Those points would prove invaluable and combined with his season-best finish of second to Westby on Sunday, and Lewis finds himself just five points out of second-place going into La- AMA DAYTONA SPORTBIKE SERIES Briefly... ers for a place in the top 15 through- out the race but came up just .21 of a second short in the end. Roberts summed up his frustrating return to the scene of last year's spectacular double-win AMA Pro de- but: "Well, at least I didn't crash to- day. This weekend hasn't really gone well. We had a problem with the bike in qualifying and I only caught the last couple of minutes. So we quali- fied 18th. Saturday I caught a group fighting for a spot in the top ten but I came through Turn 12 and hit a seam and just crashed. And today, I got an okay start. I got to racing with a couple riders, but that's not where I want to be, battling back there. It's a real bummer. We need track time to develop the bike and find out what's going on. When we only get maybe 30 laps, it's not good. The two-day schedule didn't help in that regard. I have to go back and do some more training, and get a little more flexible. The hand hurts still, it's not com- pletely healed up and I tweaked my knee so that's hurting a little bit as well." Roberts is optimistic that he and Team Hammer can turn their luck around when the AMA Pro Road Racing season resumes on July 11-13 at one of his favorite tracks - Laguna Seca. Danny Eslick is only 12 points out of the championship lead in Daytona SportBike and may have been ham- pered a bit by having to run three races, including the Vance & Hines XR1200 event, in the hot and com- pressed schedule of the two-day event at Barber. Yet Eslick doesn't feel the extra time on the Harley is detrimental to his DSB aspirations. "There towards the end of the sec- ond [DSB] race I was definitely feel- ing the effects of the heat," Eslick admitted. "But living in Oklahoma I'm Lewis (85) leads Garrett Gerloff (8) in race one before Gerloff crashed after hitting Lewis. Jake Gagne (32) also went down in the incident. continued on next page

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