BARBER VINTAGE FESTIVAL
FEATURE
P102
that going to winner Geoff May on
his ex-factory EBR 1190 superbike.
The Formula Pro Thunder event
saw some of the fastest riders in
the country on some very special
machines, all of which you won't
see at your local MotoAmerica
race. It's a category dominated by
Ducati, with six Ducati engines in
the top 10. Riders the likes of Jake
Zemke, Taylor Knapp, AMA regular
Jason DiSalvo, Chris Fillmore
and Michael Barnes fronted the
grid, with Knapp's qualifying time
of 1:25.9 just over 1.9 seconds
slower than 2017 MotoAmerica
Superbike Barber pole sitter Roger
Hayden on the factory Yoshimura
Suzuki.
But it wasn't just Formula Thun-
der that had stacked grids. The
Sound of Thunder 2 grid had an
insane 58 starters on bikes rang-
ing from air-cooled twin-cylinder
superbikes, to single-cylinder 690
and 390 KTMs. Unsurprisingly,
turn one was nothing short of
chaos, as about five bikes went ca-
reening into the gravel trap which
caused an immediate red flag.
Aside from that one major snafu,
there weren't too many crashes and
even less bikes dropping oil than
expected—a usual scene in classic
racing. That allowed the program to
run fairly uninterrupted, with those
spectators that did show up treated
to some exceptional racing.
(Above) 250GP
bikes were out in full
force at Barber. This
beautiful TZ250 was
a hit. As was
this immaculate
Honda CB900F
racer (right).
