Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

Canadian teenager Andrew Nelson went from having flaking paint to factory suspension pieces on his 2003 Honda CBR600RR in between the CCS/Formula USA and AMA weekends at Daytona International Speedway.

Nelson, who plans to race the entire Parts Canada Canadian National series, arrived at Daytona February 26 with a freshly painted but completely stock CBR600RR supplied to him by Honda Canada. While at the Speedway, Nelson received and fitted the first Hindle exhaust made for the new bike, then went on to score a fourth-place finish in the F-USA Sportbike race (despite running off the track when he bottomed the stock front forks under braking) and a fifth-place finish in the F-USA Superbike final.

But as the CCS/Formula USA weekend wore on, more and more of Nelson’s last-minute paint job came off in big flakes. “Yeah, you like that?” joked Nelson. “It was about 20 below (Fahrenheit) outside and two below inside the garage we painted it in. I guess the paint froze before it took to the bodywork.”

During the AHRMA races Monday and Tuesday, March 3-4, Nelson took his bodywork to Custom World in Tampa, Florida for a new paint job. Meanwhile, his CBR600RR was fitted with a factory Showa shock and fork internals in preparation for the AMA weekend.

Nelson had to start from scratch on his set-up but was still 18th fastest in the second AMA Supersport practice Wednesday with a 1:57.006 and improved to 1:56.421 in Thursday morning’s Supersport practice, 20th fastest.