TVR/Team Moe’s Wins Heavyweight Superstock at Jennings, Clinches Championship
JENNINGS, Fla. Team Velocity Racing/Team Moe’s (TVR) clinched the Heavyweight Superstock championship on Saturday with another class win during the WERA National Endurance Series race at Jennings GP.
The penultimate round of the season was a tough one for TVR, who struggled with setup issues all weekend with their Yamaha YZF-R1. Luckily, a solid team strategy helped Chuck Ivey, Josh Day and James Stroud come away with the Heavyweight Superstock win at the end of the six-hour race.
“It was a very exhausting race,” commented Ivey. “The heat combined with the track surface just wasn’t conducive to a solid performance, but we did what we could to find a setup that would get us through the race.”
Day echoed Ivey’s sentiment. “Our rear tire was really getting worn because our setup wasn’t dialed in. It really hurt us because the last 15 or 20 minutes of each stint was really hard to ride. We just had to deal with it,” he said.
Despite the less than ideal racing conditions, TVR still took fifth overall. The solid finish helped the team wrap up another Heavyweight Superstock championship, their fourth consecutive title.
“5150 have been great competitors all year,” said Ivey, referring to their rivals in the Heavyweight Superstock class. “They had some bad luck this weekend, and we hope they are back in full force for the next race.”
The season ends next weekend at Road Atlanta during the WERA Grand National Finals. There is still plenty of pressure on TVR heading into the four-hour race: the championship points battle for second overall is still going strong.
“Jennings was a struggle, but we survived. Now we’ll have to be on our game at Road Atlanta so we can tie up second in the overall championship,” commented Stroud. “We’re all pretty quick there so we’ve got a lot of hope.”
More information about TVR can be found online at www.TeamVelocityRacing.com.
Moe’s Southwest Grill serves fresh, healthy Mexican food with an emphasis on fast service and a fun atmosphere. The group of restaurants began in the Southeast U.S. and explosive growth over the past few years has made Moe’s Southwest Grill a household name. Moe’s locations can be found online at www.Moes.com.
More, from a press release issued on the behalf of Top Shelf Motorcycle Tours:
Top Shelf Motorcycle Tours’ Morgan Murphy (age 45) and Matthew Sadowski (age 18) combined youth and enthusiasm, with skill and wisdom to capture the 4 Hour Endurance race victory in the 600 class and a credible 4th overall in the 7th round of the AFM annual event. Murphy and Sadowski, with crew members Ted Cabral, David Sadowski Sr. and Jeffery Barger, rode the Pirelli shod, Top Shelf Motorcycle Tours’ Suzuki GSXR 600 on the same set of Pirelli tires for the entire race. Both riders rode flawlessly to capture each of their personal first modern era AFM 4 hour victories. Matt Sadowski, whom recently found his way to an AFM podium in 600 Superbike, is an Infinion Raceway specialist. The key to his success was turning so many laps around the circuit as an instructor for PTT (Pacific Tracktime) trackday events.
“Riding around here with my Dad, my brother Dave, Michael Earnest and Cory Call is an incredible ride for sure! They show me where I need to make small changes..and so far they’ve always helped me go faster. It’s been a tough year for me in sorts, the AFM entry thing and not being 18 yet; I missed a couple of valuable races. Murph (Morgan Murphy) has been a savior to me this year sponsoring us and loaning his bike to me. We hope this is a message to sponsors that we can do it, our team can win races. Our goal now is to assemble a new team soon and be even stronger next year”, said the young Sadowski.
Matthew was recruited the morning of the race at 6:45 am, Murphy was trying to get Dave Sr. to suit up possibly too. Matt had already been offered a one hour stint on the Clean Cut Consrtruction Yamaha R6, but opted to gracefully bow out to ride the Top Shelf Suzuki.
Matt’s comments.”Riding the Yamaha and Suzuki takes a little adjusting, this track magnifies mistakes and you have to be aware of the handling differences. The Suzuki is more my style, but my Yamaha has a lot of development in the Race-Tech chassis..it’s really a toss up because the same Race-Tech chassis guy works on both”¦Lenny Alben. The Pirelli tires were great and still ready for more. Look at the lap times at the end, my hat’s off to the Clean Cut Yamaha guys for pushing us!”
Timing and scoring information was delayed at the third hour of the race when the red flag came out; many teams in the race didn’t know where they stood at that point. When the race resumed after a lengthy track clean up operation was complete, it became a one-hour sprint race. The whole complexion and thought of an endurance strategy went out the window…unless you have an old man and a kid riding?
Not positively knowing they were a full lap ahead in the 600 class at the red flag, the Top Shelf Team took to the grid presuming they had to beat the Clean Cut Yamaha team to the checkered flag for victory. Morgan Murphy rode from the green flag restart for 28 minutes and signaled to his crew that he was coming in earlier than expected. The crew had thought all chance of a win was lost. Sadowski was ready in the pits and took over the controls after another quick pit stop to bring his Suzuki to the line just behind the Clean Cut team managed by Spencer Stewart. It wasn’t until the bubbly came out of the box for the podium celebration did the Top Shelf Team learn that they were indeed a lap ahead of the 600 field at the third hour red flag and had captured the 600 class victory.
The celebration and enthusiasm in victory circle for Murphy’s oddly arranged team was noticeable by the crowd’s heartfelt reactions and cheers as team-mate Matt Sadowski dowsed his Dad in champagne!
“This is what I thought possible on my Top Shelf Motorcycle Tours Suzuki GSXR 600 with the crew and riders we have. I’ll tell you, the tire and suspension set-up allowed us to just dive in for fuel and change riders. The other teams put on fresh rubber at the red flag, so we had to ride that last hour real smart with no mistakes, we did and we won! I’m happy for Matt Sadowski, he needed this just as much as I did to cap off the season on a positive note.” Said Morgan Murphy.