ASRA Championships Presented by Pirelli Tire
Babuska, O’Hare, Hofman and Jasso Secure ASRA National Wins at Summit Point Raceway
Summit Point, WV – The American Sportbike Racing Association Championship Series presented by Pirelli Tire rolled into Summit Point Raceway for its annual Memorial Day Cyclefest with the Championship Cup Series and the event lived up to its reputation. With a total of 1020 entries between the two series, this was easily the largest motorcycle road racing event of 2017 just as it has been for the last 3 years.
First up were the SportBikes and pole sitter Ricky O’Hare on his Yamaha R-6 wasted no time in getting to the front leading Greg Melka by 1.4 seconds at the completion of lap 1. Melka brought his Yamaha R-6 back to within 0.788 seconds of the leader by lap 4 only to have a bobble on lap 7 that allowed Tommy Wilson to get past and close in on the front runner O’Hare. While Wilson pushed his Yamaha R-6 to the limit, it was O’Hare by 0.367 seconds at the checkered flag with Wilson in second and Melka in third.
Next were the ThunderBikes and Defending National Champion Ray Hofman held off early challenges by Bart DeFrancesco and George Demetropolis to put his Ducati 749 on the top of the podium by 2.549 seconds. DeFrancesco brought his Suzuki SV650 home in second just 0.353 seconds ahead of Demetropolis and his SV650.
In SuperStock Frank Babuska Jr. won the pole and was joined on the front row by Tim Bemisderfer, Mark Heckles and William Gawler. As the green flag dropped, Bemisderfer got the hole shot on his Kawasaki ZX-10 but by the time they completed lap 1, it was Heckles in front on his Yamaha R-1 followed by Babuska and Bemisderfer just 0.254 seconds behind. By lap 2, Heckles and Babuska pushed their R-1s clear of Bemisderfer by 1.213 seconds and continued to pull away from the field for the rest of the race. On lap 4, Babuski made his move and led Heckles by 0.048 at the stripe. While Heckles continued to challenge Babuska at every turn, when the checkered flag flew is was Babuska for the win over Heckles by 0.940 seconds. While Bemisderfer held on to third place for the first 8 laps, it was Ryan Jones on his BMW S1000RR that took the final podium spot for SuperStock.
The new ASRA Moto 3 class had 13 entries and it was a wild one from the start. For the first 7 laps it was a knock down drag out battle for second as Jasso took position of the top position on his Yamaha 125 and inched away from the field. Ray Hofman, Mark Dickerson and Shane Hoeckel slammed their Kawasaki Ninja 300s together fighting for second. At the flag, it was Hofman, followed by Dickerson and Hoeckel in fourth place in one of the most exciting races of the day,
In Amateur action, it was Jeremy Whitehurst taking the win in SuperStock, Nate Redding in SportBike, Robert Brown in ThunderBike and SJ Harris in Moto 3.
The next stop for the ASRA Championship Series Presented by Pirelli Tire is Virginia International Raceway’s North Course on June 10-11, 2017. For more information visit www.ASRAracing.com and follow the links or call 817-246-1127 (9 to 5 Central Time Monday through Thursday).
The American Sportbike Racing Association (ASRA) is the parent organization to the Championship Cup Series (CCS), the largest amateur motorcycle road racing organization in the United States issuing over 2800 licenses per year. ASRA promotes eight AMA sanctioned Sprint Series and eight AMA sanctioned Team Challenge road racing events for 2017. The CCS Series sanctions 40 events at popular tracks around the United States, including Daytona International Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Road America, New Jersey Motorsports Park and Virginia International Raceway among other fine venues. In 2016 ASRA and CCS will provide riders with access to millions of dollars of sponsorship awards through participation in its sanctioned events.
For more racing information visit www.asraracing.com or www.ccsracing.us or call us at (817) 246-1127. Join CCS and ASRA in the greatest road racing experience available today!