The SunTrust Moto-ST 300-mile endurance race at Daytona International Speedway—the 2008 series opening round—delivered everything and anything a race fan could ask for. The racing was so intense that the top three positions in two of the classes were still up for grabs into the final laps of the grueling 108-lap race. One of the lead bikes caught fire on pit road just four laps from the end and bikes ran out of gas battling for the lead. There were also impressive first-ever race appearances for new bike models and some of racing’s best-known names hammering it out with the cream of the up-and-comers.
In the top SST class, the reigning series champion, young Ty Howard and teammate Mike Himmelsbach, rode their ApriliaUSA/Lloyd Brothers Motorsport-backed Aprilia Tuono to a hard-fought, lead-swapping win over the clearly rejuvenated veteran—and former World Superbike Champion—Doug Polen and his teammate Peter Friedland in the first-ever outing for the new Ducati 848 sponsored by Touring Sport Ducati III.
Four teams on five different brands swapped leads during the race. Besides the Aprilia and the Ducati 848 of Howard and Polen, there was the Suzuki SV1000S of Team RoadracingWorld.com, the Buell 1125R of Bruce Rossmeyer Racing (he and his mega-H-D dealership fast becoming the major Bike Week crowd destination) and R1200S from BMW of Atlanta. It was the Rossmeyer Buell that caught fire in the pits, the result of several race-long problems with the 1125R’s drive belt. Tight jaws in the Rossmeyer pit spoke of a chain drive for their extremely competitive machine in time for the next round.
Fuel issues also played a major part in the results. Out of gas on the last lap, the ApriliaUSA/Lloyd Brothers Motorsports’ #6 bike was forced to surrender third place to hard-charging British rider Richard Cooper on the BMW. Polen’s Ducati lost its lead—and eventually the race—because of a late-race fuel stop. And even though Polen posted the fastest lap of the race chasing down Howard’s Aprilia, he came up 4.5 seconds short. Several of the lead bikes actually went dry on the cool-down lap.
The ST (Sport Twins) Class was another close-fought, veteran-vs.-youngster battle, with the youngsters coming out on top in this one, too. Sixteen-year-old James Rispoli and teammate Ted Cobb, riding for Cycle Dynamics, bested Pair-a-Nines Racing’s veterans Jay Springsteen and Jimmy Filice, both teams mounted on Kawasaki Ninja 650s. This prompted a series of joking back-and-forths on the podium about respect for one’s elders vs. Rispoli’s comment that, “Everybody’s your enemy on the racetrack until after the race is over.”
Bottom line: If the rest of Bike Week’s race action comes anywhere close to the Moto-ST event and all its drama, it’s going to be a Bike Week to remember.
