The entry list for the 2022 Daytona 200, featuring the MotoAmerica Supersport class, has been released by MotoAmerica and includes 50 riders. The 80th running of the classic race is scheduled March 12 at Daytona International Speedway, in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Entry lists for recent Daytona 200 races have been larger: 68 in 2021, 78 in 2020, 68 in 2019, 65 in 2018, and 69 in 2017 for an average of 69.6 riders per event.
Entry lists for the MotoAmerica Mission King Of The Baggers, MotoAmerica Twins Cup, and RSD Super Hooligan classes have also been released.
Entries are closed for the event.
While the new Daytona 200 entry list is smaller than it has been in the recent past, there are once again some talented riders in the field.
Starting at the top of MotoAmerica’s entry list, which is in order by competition numbers, there’s #2 Josh Herrin. Herrin, the 2010 Daytona 200 race winner, is riding a Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati NYC Panigale V2, which he tested at Daytona in January.
Herrin’s bike is one of four 955cc V-Twin Ducati Panigale V2s in the field. The big Ducatis, Triumph’s Street Triple RS 765cc triple, MV Agusta’s F3 800 798cc triple, and Suzuki’s GSX-R750 inline four-cylinder are eligible to race against the traditional 599cc inline four-cylinder sportbikes this year as part of new FIM/MotoAmerica Supersport Next Generation rules.
Then there’s Josh Hayes, who is listed as riding a Squid Hunter Yamaha. Squid Hunter Racing has significant experience racing at Daytona, and four-time AMA Superbike Champion Hayes has been training almost as hard as ever, he says, and feels that he has unfinished business after being stripped of his Daytona 200 victory in 2008 due to a technical violation.
Rising star Kevin Olmedo, of El Salvador, returns on the updated BobbleHeadMoto/N2 Racing Yamaha he raced in the 2021 Daytona 200. Olmedo’s teammate for the event will be Chris Peris, a former AMA Pro and World Supersport racer who currently races and wins in the N2/WERA National Endurance Championship with Army of Darkness.
Some of the biggest names on the entry list are Jake Gagne and Cameron Petersen. Gagne won 17 of 20 races and the 2021 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship and finished second in the 2014 Daytona 200. South African Petersen also won a MotoAmerica Superbike race in 2021, but he has never raced at Daytona before, let alone in the Daytona 200. Gagne and Petersen will be riding Attack Performance Yamaha YZF-R6s, as the Daytona 200 Supersport race is outside of the team’s MotoAmerica Superbike deal Fresh N Lean, Progressive, and Yamaha.
Mexican rider Richie Escalante joins South African Sam Lochoff, and veteran Geoff May in a three-rider effort for Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki. All three riders are entered to ride GSX-R600s. May has extensive experience racing at Daytona, and Lochoff won the ASRA Team Challenge endurance race at Daytona in October 2021. Escalante has never raced in the Daytona 200, but he did do the AMA Supersport race at Daytona in 2014.
Four-time Daytona 200 race winner Danny Eslick returns to the high banks in search of win number five, which would tie him with Miguel Duhamel and Scott Russell for the most Daytona 200 victories. Eslick will be riding for TOBC Racing on a Triumph Street Triple RS 765. Eslick will be teamed with 2021 Daytona 200 winner Brandon Paasch, who won the race on a Yamaha before spending the bulk of 2021 racing a Triumph Street Triple RS 765. Paasch will run his normal #96 and not a #1, he told Roadracingworld.com.
Sheridan Morais, a South African now living in Portugal, returns to the Daytona 200 with SYNTAINICS Racing Team and a Yamaha. Morais is a MotoAmerica Stock 1000 race winner and a former Supersport World Championship race winner who currently rides in the FIM Endurance World Championship.
After winning the Daytona 200 with Paasch in 2021, TSE Racing returns to Daytona with Harry Truelove, a British racer who won a British Supersport race in 2021.
Of the 50 riders entered for the race, 14 different nationalities are represented.
Editorial Note: Use the scroll and zoom tools in the bottom left corner of the PDF viewer to see entry lists for all four classes racing at Daytona.
