2015 Daytona 200

Because International Speedway Corporation and MotoAmerica could not come to an agreement on joint production of a 2015 Daytona 200, ISC brought in ASRA (American Sportbike Racing Association), whose address is the same as that of CCS (Championship Cup Series).

The race was in the very best Daytona tradition—it was reach-out-and-touch-you close nearly all the way, with last year’s winner Danny Eslick turning back a heart-stopper last-lap drafting challenge by 2010 200 winner Josh Herrin by 0.086 second. Geoff May was third, his presence in the race made possible by the “Project Mayday” GoFundMe internet fundraising effort. He was with the other two until a refueling glitch on lap 52. The evergreen Steve Rapp (who won the 200 in 2007) was with the lead group until assessed a penalty for being out of position for the restart after the fourth red flag.

Through the miracle of transponder scoring, the confusion that used to result from the two fuel and tire stops is a thing of the past. Yet despite that, this 74th running of the Daytona 200 saw a tight cluster of three to six riders at the front form and reform, time and again, despite gas stops and red flags. No one could break away, even at the end. In the final two laps, Herrin, lapping in the 1:51s, was making up one to two seconds a lap on the leader, who later said, “I thought I was all by myself. Then I looked back and saw a big number two!”

What Kurtis Roberts said, all those years ago, applies here: “From the stands, they look like they’re racing, but they’re not. They’re just waiting for those last two laps, planning their moves, sizing up the opposition. All that lead-changing in between doesn’t mean a thing.”

The rules for this 200 were structured for bikes most racers can build and ride, but broadened to add Ducati 848s and Triumph 675s to the usual Supersport-modded 600s. Daytona for years commanded an 80-bike starting field, but to get the 53 who actually started Saturday, they had to ease qualifying with a 115 percent rule (to qualify, your time may not be more than 115 percent of the pole time). That meant that the leaders began lapping the backfield on laps 7 and 8. In each session of lapping, some of the leaders were baulked, but such is the unique nature of 600 Supersport that the delayed riders were able to draft back to the front.

This is because two bikes, running nose-to-tail, help each other. The following bike organizes what would otherwise be the drag-producing low-pressure wake of the lead bike, and the lead bike returns the favor by giving the follower a lower airspeed. Separately, the bikes are too short to avoid leaving turbulent wakes. Together, they approximate a long Bonneville streamliner.

These ASRA Supersport-based rules are realistic, for back in the days of AMA 750 Superbike, no sane privateer would bet the extreme cost of a built Superbike against the 10th-place place money he might aspire to against $300,000 factory bikes. Private entries therefore rode their clubman Supersport 750s in Superbike. The original Supersport rules recognized the basic “raceability” of modern sportbikes, permitting only a package of tires, brake pads, rear suspension unit, and a careful valve job to be added. That remains an affordable basis for racing.

For a brief moment in the early 1990s, the AMA was tempted to make Supersport the top class for this very reason, but it didn’t happen. Now, Daytona and ASRA are having another look. It’s not all gravy, for while having packs of bikes together is exciting for spectators, it brings the danger of mass get-offs of the kind we’ve occasionally seen in past Supersport events here. There were four red flags in this 200, making what is normally a two-hour race take three hours and 22 minutes.

After the race, 2nd-place finisher Josh Herrin said, “We really got killed by those red flags.”

Daytona streamed the race on FansChoice.tv, but had it been on network TV, the delays would have pushed the exciting finish into conflict with other programming. In the past, therefore, there was talk of using less of the banking, where drafting works, to allow the infield part of the track to break up packs of drafting riders.

Daytona is unique, presenting its own special problems. One was the “splash-and-go” required by the last red flag, which occurred on lap 34 (the restart reverted to the order on lap 33.), offering the temptation to go the remaining 24 laps on one tank. None of the top three took Lady Luck’s odds on that one, and Geoff May, who would otherwise have been with Eslick and Herrin to the end, was delayed by a problem after his fuel stop.

May explained: “Part of the dump can came off in the filler (holding it slightly open), and gas was coming out all over me. I saw what looked like a zip-tie caught in the quickfill. I pushed it down and it fell into the tank. That’s Daytona!”

One feature of the Daytona field in its 1970s-1990s heyday was foreign riders. Just to show that irony is not dead, 40-year-old veteran Slovenian rider Bostjan Skubic (he has raced here 15 times!) finished 4th, and Canadian Darren James came home 5th. Grassroots racing? When it came time to leave for Daytona, Geoff May had no truck, so he threw all his gear in his van and set out. Like the many thousands of Daytona competitors before him, he was a “man-in-a-van-with-a-plan.

This kind of Daytona racing is about staying in striking distance so you can make your play on the final lap. A few times, luck has put newcomers into the frame, but usually, and this time, experience counts. That’s why Eslick, Herrin, May, and Rapp—all veterans—traded the lead so very many times, practicing the draft, testing each others’ plays, waiting for the moment. When it came, it was Danny Eslick’s.

Motorcycles? Oh, yes—Danny Eslick rode a Suzuki GSX-R600 and the rest of the top 11 finishers were on Yamaha R6s.

Let’s not be tempted to take sides, Daytona versus MotoAmerica. Racers, spectators, and sanctioning bodies face an uphill battle to restart US road racing, return it to popularity, and find ways to pay its bills. This 2015 Daytona 200 was a grand way to begin that collective project.

Official Race Results:

1. Danny Eslick (Suz GSX-R600), 57 laps

2. Josh Herrin (Yam YZF-R6)

3. Geoff May (Yam YZF-R6)

4. Bostjan Skubic (Yam YZF-R6)

5. Armando Ferrer (Yam YZF-R6)

6. Darren James (Yam YZF-R6)

7. Sean Dwyer (Yam YZF-R6)

8. Bryce Prince (Yam YZF-R6), -1 lap

9. Ryan Christian (Yam YZF-R6), -1 lap, crash

10. Kristofer Knopf (Yam YZF-R6), -1 lap

11. George Letakis (Yam YZF-R6), -1 lap

12. Eric Wood (Kaw ZX-6/636R), -1 lap, crash

13. Bruno Silva (Yam YZF-R6), -1 lap

14. Alan Slaney (Tri Daytona 675), -1 lap

15. Steve Rapp (Yam YZF-R6), -1 lap, stop-and-go penalty

16. Patricia Fernandez (Yam YZF-R6), -2 laps

17. Fernando Silva (Yam YZF-R6), -2 laps

18. Christian Crosslin (Suz GSX-R600), -2 laps

19. Eric Haugo (Yam YZF-R6), -2 laps

20. Eric Helmbach (Kaw ZX-6R), -2 laps

21. Anthony Fania (Suz GSX-R600), -2 laps

22. Eric Pinson (Yam YZF-R6), -2 laps

23. Joel Lenk (Yam YZF-R6), -3 laps

24. Jason Farrell (Kaw ZX-6R), -3 laps, crash

25. Darrin Klemens (Suz GSX-R600), -3 laps

26. Charlie Mavros (Yam YZF-R6), -4 laps

27. Christian Meekma (Tri Daytona 675), -4 laps

28. Gino Angella (Duc 848), -4 laps

29. Jeff Permanian (Yam YZF-R6), -5 laps

30. Andrew Abel (Suz GSX-R600), -6 laps

31. Calvin Crosslin (Suz GSX-R600), -6 laps

32. Jon Foy, -6 laps

33. Russ Intravartolo (Yam YZF-R6), -6 laps

34. Daniel Spaulding (Yam YZF-R6), -7 laps

35. Stuart Harper (Yam YZF-R6), -8 laps, crash

36. Ryan Jones (Hon CBR600RR), -13 laps

37. John T Blike, Jr. (Kaw ZX-6/636R), -13 laps

38. Arthur Aznavuryan (Yam YZF-R6), -14 laps

39. Tony Stomiolo (Kaw ZX-6R), -24 laps

40. Dustin Apgar (Yam YZF-R6), -25 laps

41. Stefano Mesa (Yam YZF-R6), -26 laps, DNF, mechanical

42. Seth Starnes (Yam YZF-R6), -27 laps, DNF

43. Norman Pomerleau (Yam YZF-R6), -28 laps, DNF

44. David Sadowski, Jr. (Yam YZF-R6), -29 laps, DNF

45. Carl Soltisz (Yam YZF-R6), -29 laps, DNF

46. Josh Gallusser (Suz GSX-R600), -32 laps, DNF

47. Stephen Wilkins (Yam YZF-R6), -39 laps, DNF

48. Jamie Patterson (Suz GSX-R600), -54 laps, DNF

49. Barrett Long (Duc 848), -57 laps, DNF, mechanical

50. John Ashmead (Kaw ZX-6R), -57 laps, DNF, mechanical

51. Scott Stall (Yam YZF-R6), -57 laps, DNF

52. Xavier Zayat (Yam YZF-R6), -57 laps, DNF, mechanical

53. Charlie Long (Duc 848), -57 laps, DNF, crash