The Barber Superbike Classic AMA Pro Superbike event started on time Friday at Barber Motorsports Park with the Daytona SportBike class heading out for their first practice at 12:00 p.m. local time, and five minutes later a heavy thunderstorm brought all activity to a halt. The temperature dropped sharply, thick black clouds turned day into night, the wind whipped into a frenzy, sheets of rain began falling sideways, canopies toppled, thunder clapped, lightning struck and AMA Pro Racing promptly displayed the red flag, directed riders back to the pits while cornerworkers were retrieved from their stations out of the track. Officially, the session was stopped due to lightning in the area. When the session stopped Danny Eslick was at the top of the timing monitors with a 1:33.995 on his GEICO Powersports RMR Suzuki GSX-R600. Josh Herrin took pole position for last year’s Daytona SportBike race at Barber with a lap of 1:28.374. The storm is expected to pass relatively quickly, and the weather forecast for the remainder of the weekend does not include a significant chance for more rain. Update: At about 1:00 p.m. local time, the severe weather eased to the point that AMA Pro Racing officials were able to start preparing the track for the resumption of practice and qualifying at Barber Motorsports Park. Activity will resume with the resumption of Daytona SportBike practice at 1:40 p.m. until 2:20 p.m. and then according to the following tentative schedule: 2:30 – 3:10 p.m. National Guard Superbike Practice 3:20 – 4:00 p.m. Motorcycle-Superstore.com SuperSport Practice 4:10 – 4:55 p.m. Daytona SportBike Provisional Qualifying 5:05 – 5:50 p.m. National Guard Superbike Provisional Qualifying 6:00 – 6:45 p.m. Motorcycle-Superstore.com SuperSport Provisional Qualifying At the time of this update it was still raining at the track.