Round #5 Hottest Weekend in 2008, Weather and Racing

The Bridgestone/WERA National Endurance Series and Michelin/WERA National Sprints and the Pirelli/WERA Sportsman WERA West Series wera at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Classic Course with practice and qualifying on Friday, June 27, then the Bridgestone/WERA 6 Hour Endurance ran on Saturday and the Michelin/WERA National and Pirelli/WERA WERA West Sportsman Sprints on Sunday.

Qualifying on Friday saw Tray Batey with Vesrah Suzuki take pole for the Open Superstock and Dane Westby got pole in the 600cc Superstock.

Saturday the six hour Bridgestone/WERA National Endurance took the grid with 19 machines entered and 18 taking the grid after Team Mexico had to withdraw due to a crash on Friday. Brand X with Ben Walters, Brett Champagne and Dale Kieffer took on Vesrah Suzuki with Tray Batey, John Jacobi and Michael Barnes in for injured rider, Chris Ulrich. Brand X held the lead for the first two hours and after the short red flag and the restart Vesrah held on to the top position until the end building only a one lap lead on Brand X over the grueling six hours.

Temperatures reached in to the low 100s, but at the end 12 teams were still on track running. The podium saw Vesrah first overall and first Heavyweight Superbike, with Brand X second overall and Dalke Motorsports third overall and first Mediumweight Superstock with riders Dane Westby and Dustin Meador doing the riding.

First Heavyweight Superstock went to locals Code 4 Racing, with Dave Lucero, James Brooks, Charles Burow and Zoran Vujasinovic sharing the riding duties. First Mediumweight Superbike was Zyvax Racing with brothers J.B. and Scott Layman, Steve Green and Jimmy Vanderhaar sharing the riding. First Lightweight Superbike was #23 Cycle Specialties Racing, who came out of Florida to run at the Las Vegas Classic Course, with riders Aaron Aaronson, Joe Schoch and Shawn Hill.

On Sunday Mother Nature decided to heat things up even more 111 degrees. The Michelin/WERA National Sprints and WERA West Pirelli Sportsman riders took the grid for the 15 eight lap races and some good racing was seen over the course of the day. Joe Roberts (80cc) and Anthony DeHaven (50cc) took first places in the Mini Races, Tray Batey took the Open Superstock win, with Jeff Havlik winning the Novice Open Superstock; Dane Westby went on to win the 600 Superstock race with up and coming Novice Kyle Dulcich taking the Novice win; Tray Batey repeated for the 750 Superstock as did Dulcich; Tyler Odom put the first real 450 Supersingle on the podium and also took first in the Heavyweight Superbike Class. Benny Solis rode to first in the 125cc GP race which saw 9 entries at Vegas with Ryan Matter taking second and Austin DeHaven third. Formula 1 saw Tray get his three peat and Jeff Havlik first in the Novice ranks. 750 Superbike saw Elena Myers get her first place with Chris Clark and Shane McGoey hot on her heels. Lenny Hale came across the line first, but suffered a five position penalty for passing under a waiving yellow.

600 Superbike was Dane Westby for the Experts and Andrew Akins for the Novice riders. The final race of the day saw Alex Assanti take his Suzuki 1000 to the front with Eddie Barajas a close second and Matthias Ullholm rounding out the podium. Michael Getlin won the Novice A Superbike. It was a hot weekend, but our ambulance crews never left the property.

Round #6 finds the Bridgestone/WERA National Endurance, Michelin/WERA National Sprints and Pirelli/WERA Sporstman riders at Grattan Raceway in Grattan Michigan on July 11/12/13. Camping is available at the track. Check out WERA @www.wera.com for more information.

More, from a press release issued by Birchall Racing:

ANOTHER TOP FOUR FINISH FOR BIRCHALL RACING AT ASSEN

Round three of the 2008 FIM World Sidecar Championship moved on to the Netherlands, where the 2.83 miles Assen circuit was the venue for Mansfield’s Sidecar racing brothers, Ben and Tom Birchall, who picked up a further 13 points with another good fourth place finish.

The first qualifying session saw Ben and Tom lying fourth, after which they made some set-up alterations to their Mitchell’s of Mansfield sponsored LCR Suzuki, bringing about a good improvement in their lap times during the afternoon.

After making some adjustments to the bike, Ben said, “We managed over a second a lap quicker during the second qualifying session; we hung on to fourth place and we were comfortably on the pace of the top three and Tom and I are looking forward to Saturday’s race.”

Watched by around 130,000 spectators, the brothers got off to a good start for the 18-lap race and managed to cross the finishing line in fourth place for another solid result, gaining a further 13 points for the team.

“Tom and I were comfortably running in third place for a while and pushing hard for second, until we encountered brake problems which gradually became worse as the race progressed,” said Ben after the race. “Unfortunately this curtailed any further advancement for us but we held on for a hard-fought fourth place.”

The lead in the championship continues to be held by the Finnish team of Pekka Päivärinta and Timo Karttiala with Birchall Racing retaining fourth place, 17 points ahead of the pairing of Josef Moser and Ueli Wäfler.

The brothers now look forward to the next round of the championship, when they make the lengthy return journey to Sachsenring, Germany from July 11-13, when once again they will race alongside the MotoGP.

Ben and Tom are very grateful to their sponsors, family and friends for their much valued, ongoing support.

Information on the team can be found here ~http://www.birchallracing.com~

Link to FIM World Sidecar website ~http://www.superside.com/index.html~

More, from a press release issued by Nadine Lajoie:

Welcome to the desert! With temperatures reaching 110ºF, Nadine Lajoie raced on her Importations Thibault/ Suomy/Elka CBR 600RR motorcycle at the National in Las Vegas, NV. As it was a National race, many high ranked racers were competing. The weekend started with great results on the first morning of trials, however, her concentration in the afternoon trials was deterred due to a stolen wallet resulting in filing a police report and many phone calls. Her times weren’t great.

Sunday, trials were much better and resulted in race times of 1.29114 placing her 6th in A Superbike (1000CC), 6th in B Superbike (750CC) and 15th in C Superbike (600CC). Nadine to say: “Based on my first day and worries due to my stolen wallet, I was happy with my results as times came down by more than 4 seconds in one day”.

In mid-June, Nadine raced at Willow Springs, CA and finished 6th in Modified Production 600CC, 11th in Superbike 600CC and 11th in Formula 2. The next race is July 18 20, 2008 at Willow Springs, CA .