From a press release issued by WERA Motorcycle Roadracing:
Round #2 Tornadoes, Rain, Great Racing, No Ambulance Calls
This title pretty much sums up R#2 of the WERA National Challenge Series featuring the Bridgestone/WERA National Endurance Series and the Michelin/WERA National Challenge Series.
Friday saw a practice/qualifying day full of Mother Nature. WERA President, Evelyne Clarke, made the call to move the two qualifiers up to right after lunch which proved to be a good call in the end. Tornado sirens started going off shortly after the qualifiers were completed. With a threat of really bad weather WERA Motorcycle Roadracing threw a red flag and everyone hunkered down to “wait and see”.
Around 3:00 the all clear was sounded and WERA held an open practice for 45 minutes and called the day since only a few riders took the wet track. Then the heavy rains came in and Friday was complete.
Saturday saw 25 motorcycles entered and 24 taking the grid for Round #2 of The Bridgestone/WERA National Endurance Series. Last year’s Champions held off challenges from Dalke Motorsports, Brand X and MouseboxRacing.com. Riders Chris Ulrich, Tray Batey and John Jacobi brought the Vesrah Suzuki to the top of the winner’s podium by a 5 lap victory and claimed 1st Heavyweight Superbike. Brand X with Ben Walters, Tripp Nobles and Brett Champagne sharing the riding duties came in 2nd and MouseBoxRacing.com came in 3rd overall and 1st Mediumweight Superstock in their second endurance. Team Owner, Jonathan Boswell, thanked his riders Tim Hunt, Isinovy Calvo and Alex Valcarcel for taking the stock Yamaha 600 to the podium.
Class winners for the weekend included TVR 131 in the Heavyweight Superstock Class; Velocity Crew Racing in the Mediumweight Superbike Class and Blue Ridge Performance, with Daniel Parkerson and Lyles Sanders managed to grab 1st from defending Champions Ghetto Customs by 17 seconds.
Sunday saw a dry track and sun coming out after lunch and great racing was the reward. The first race of the day was the Mini Race and Zac Chapman’s little brother Jake saw his first victory in the Mini 50 Class Michael B. Scott won the Mini 80s class.
A Superstock saw a battle between Robert Jensen, Tray Batey and Lee Acree with finish coming out that way and Jensen setting a new track record at 56.663. 600 Superstock saw Josh Day take the win from Jensen by a mere 0.328, with Payton Sassaman, Zac Chapman and Kris Lee Turner all within a second of each other for 3rd through 5th.
Jensen came back for the 750cc Superstock race to finish 1st ahead of Chris Opie Caylor and Cory Burleson. Chris Parrish took the win over Ricky Ford in the Lightweight Twins Superstock race and repeated a win in the Formula 2 race Josh Day came back to take the win in 600 Superbike and Ryan Clay took the win in the 750 Superbike.
Formula 1 saw Jenson on top with Taylor Knapp and Lee Acree taking the three positions on the podium.
The weekend’s big Novice winner was Jim Merck, with David White taking multiple wins. White rode with a missing tip of his finger after he got it stuck in the chain while riding the final stint in the Endurance on Saturday. White finished his stint on Saturday in spite of his mishap and lost a good bit of blood, but taped up the finger and took his grid on Sunday and did well.
Round #3 moves the Series to Jennings GP over the May 16/17/18 weekend. For more information go to www.wera.com .