Good Race Weekend For Safety First Suzuki at Road Atlanta

Safety First Suzuki made some great strides at Road Atlanta this weekend as Team Owner Kevin Hanson related, “I am really happy with the way the guys rode this weekend. Sixteen-year-old Bobby Fong continues to show how talented he really is as a rider. All of the tracks are new to Bobby except for the CA rounds. In the Supersport race Bobby got down to a 1:26:3 and passed Factory Yoshimura Suzuki rider Tommy Hayden and several other more experience riders before making a mistake and losing three positions by grabbing one to many downshifts into the hard breaking turn 10. I can’t ask for anything more from a really young rider. Bobby continues to go faster and learn every race weekend. Scotty (Ryan) had his best weekend so far with his lap time progression. He went three seconds faster this year than he did previously and found almost a full second for the Supersport Race. We had a new front slick that we tested from Michelin that worked great that the club level guys are really going to be excited about.” Bobby Fong- Finished 13th-FX, 16th- Supersport

“I feel a lot better now after finishing this weekend. Ron Wood from Michelin gave us some great new front slicks for our Formula Xtreme qualifying and race that we were able to get a lot out of. I lost out to (Tommy) Hayden and Lee (Acree) after snicking down one to may gears into corner 10, standing the bike up and riding through the gravel trap. But I was reeling them back in again right after that. I wish we had a few more laps as I am confident I would have caught and re-passed them.”

Fong currently is in 9th place for Formula Xtreme points and remained in 18th for the Supersport class following Road Atlanta.

Scotty Ryan- Finished 17th- FX, 24th-Supersport

“It takes me a bit longer to get up to speed, which in this case had me turning my fastest laps of the weekend during Supersport. We did have a compressed schedule and lost some track time with the rain in Saturday, so I really had to cram. Jim (Rashid) gave us the best set-up we have had all year. My finish in Formula Xtreme matched my best result this year. I want to thank Ron and Scot from Michelin for the new tires we were able to use this weekend. The only word that I can think of to describe the tires would be “awesome”! I had a low-side after loosing the front in the spotty misting that we saw on Sunday morning, but my Komodo leathers and Suomy helmet did their job. Going to Laguna in two weeks will be nice and I hope we can pick up right where we left off in July when we last raced there, as we have a real tight schedule that weekend with only getting on the track on Saturday and Sunday.”

Ryan remained in 18th for Formula Xtreme and 31st place in Supersport after the round.

The team will be finishing the 2007 season in two weeks time at Laguna Seca. This will mark the first time this year that the Safety First Suzuki riders will be visiting a track where they both have prior racing experience.

Safety First Racing was formed in 2004 by police officer/racer, Kevin Hanson, based out of Chicago, IL. For 2007, Safety First Suzuki will be competing in the AMA Superbike series in the Supersport and Formula Xtreme classes. Checkout www.SAFETYFIRSTRACING.com to see the Safety First Suzuki line of apparel and casual wear. Kevin Hanson continues to educate elementary school aged children nationwide about the importance of helmet usage.

More, from a press release issued by Corona Extra Honda:

ELLISON MOVES CORONA EXTRA HONDA CBR1000RR TO EIGHTH AT ROAD ATLANTA SUPERBIKE

With the East Coast heat wave following the AMA circus, James Ellison continued to improve his riding of the Corona Extra Honda CBR1000RR SuperBike, taking eighth in the second SuperBike event of this weekend’s doubleheader at Road Atlanta. A mechanical problem sidelined him in the first race.

Ellison immediately came to grips with the high-speed Road Atlanta track and was quickly up to speed in practice and qualifying. Within seconds of the close of qualifying he was fourth but ultimately was pipped for that front-row slot by mere tenths of a second so had to settle for fifth, first on the second row. This was his best qualifying all year and boded well for the races!

Come the green flag for the first race, James got a poor start and found himself in eleventh slot after the first lap. He quickly started making up positions getting to ninth by lap four when championship leader Ben Spies crashed, bringing out the red flag. The restart was very prompt and the crew had no time to change the notoriously delicate clutch of the CBR1000RR Superbike. James tried to feather it but it gave up the ghost and he was forced to retire. The disappointed crew immediately put in a new one for race two!

James was obviously concerned about the clutch in race two and it showed in his cautious start which again found him eleventh on lap one. Once again he put his head down and started making up positions getting three by the finish and ending up in eighth, a solid finish. James said; “I was really gentle on the clutch and lost some positions at the start. After I got around some guys I couldn’t get on the draft of the next group. The track is really fast and the draft makes all the difference. I’m bummed I was not able to capitalize on my qualifying position!” The weekend has Ellison remaining eleventh in the SuperBike championship series.

More, from a press release issued by Millennium/KWS Suzuki:

Millennium/KWS Suzuki’s David Weber in the Top Ten at Road Atlanta

Braselton, GA Sep 2007 — Millennium/KWS Suzuki sponsored by Ron Ayers Motorsports rider David Weber rode through injuries to his foot, shoulder, and wrist to get his best AMA finish of his career. John Haner was back with the team for Road Atlanta after suffering from a severe case of pneumonia and was riding well, but mechanical problems put a damper on his come back weekend.

Superstock qualifying was canceled because of water seepage on the track so the grid was set from Practice times from Saturday morning. The Millennium/KWS riders started from the third row with Weber in the eleventh position and Haner in the twelfth position. The second Superbike qualifying session was also canceled, but Weber and Haner were able to qualify in the fourteenth and fifteenth positions based on the first qualifying session. Weber rode his Dunlop shod Suzuki GSX-R1000 to a time of 1:25.521. Teammate Haner was right behind Weber with a time of 1:25.983.

In Superbike Race One both riders got excellent starts and raced together for most of the race. The Millennium Technologies sponsored riders crossed the finish line back to back once again. Weber finished in the thirteenth position and Haner finished right behind his teammate in the fourteenth position.

Sunday morning’s Superstock race started well with Haner running as high as sixth on lap one. Unfortunately he suffered a mechanical failure coming out of the last turn, ending what would have certainly been a top ten finish. Meanwhile, teammate David Weber was locked in a race long battle with Halof Suzuki’s Scott Jensen which culminated to a ninth place finish for the Dunlop equipped Weber. This ties Weber’s best AMA finish to date, matching his ninth place finish in Superstock earlier this year at Road America.

Superbike Race Two was only and hour after the Superstock race and was going to be challenge for Weber’s injured right wrist. Weber rode a smart race, only pushing when he needed to and conserving the strength in his wrist to get another top fifteen finish. Haner’s bad luck weekend continued when the clutch failed at the start forcing Haner to retire on lap three.

David Weber “It was a really good weekend, although a bit painful. My wrist was pretty good throughout the week, but long runs on the bike made it really sore. I got some good results and I owe it all to my guys, Rick Matheny and Matt Hill. They worked super hard was usual. I want to thank Dunlop, Suzuki, Penske and the entire Millennium/KWS Suzuki team. These guys work really hard to give me the best equipment every weekend.

John Haner “It was a tough weekend. We had a lot of bad luck but that’s racing sometimes. This is a great team and we will get it right for Laguna in two weeks. I want to thank Michael Godin for all his hard work this weekend. He is the hardest working guy in the paddock and I appreciate every hour he puts in. I also have to thank Rockstar Energy Drink for coming out and supporting us.”

Kevin Hunt (Team Owner) “It was a pretty good weekend. We had some bad luck, but as usual the team pulled together and made the most of it. I want to thank the John and David for riding 100% even with the injuries and the illness and I want thank the crew for all the hard work. Nobody works harder than these guys.”

More, from a press release issued by Shift:

AMA ROAD RACING REPORT CORY WEST

Privateer road racer Cory West gives you the inside scoop from Round 10 of the AMA Supersport and Formula Xtreme Championships at Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA.

By Cory West

After the races in Virginia, I actually had a weekend off, so I flew back to San Diego for a week. I spent most of my time relaxing with my girlfriend, Amanda, and helping her to get ready for college to resume. My birthday was on the 23rd and I didn’t really do anything special except for going out to sushi for dinner!

I flew back to Atlanta on the following Tuesday so I could help Chuck get everything ready for the weekend. With a bunch of help from all of our sponsors, we managed to get everything fresh and ready again after our issues in Virginia. Both bikes were ready to roll and all I had to do was break one motor in a little bit on Thursday’s practice day.

Everything got off to a pretty good start on Thursday in the first few practice sessions. My times were getting close to what I had turned at Road Atlanta earlier in July during the WERA Cycle Jam and we weren’t having any big issues with the bikes. The day got cut short in the afternoon though because it started raining. Road Atlanta is another track that the AMA doesn’t race at in the wet. I don’t want to sound like a cry baby when I say this, but Road Atlanta is by far the most dangerous place on the AMA schedule, if you ask me. There are some walls in places that are very high speed, and for that reason the AMA doesn’t make the riders risk everything by going out on this track in the rain.

Everything dried up on Friday and the first practice sessions went pretty well for us. I definitely wasn’t fully up to speed yet but my times were consistently getting faster. I have a little bit of trouble not getting up to speed as fast as some of the other riders, but it’s usually because I’m trying to get comfortable before I start pushing the envelope. In the past my record at Atlanta has been pretty bad. I’ve crashed a lot at this track and I’ve had some horrible luck here too, so I really wanted to take it a step slower so things didn’t get bad right away. In FX qualifying at the end of the day I ended up 13th and turned in a reasonably quick lap time but we were still a little off the pace. I really tried not to get too worked up about putting in a particular lap time and just focused on getting comfortable and turning consistently quick laps.

Friday night when we were leaving the track, it started raining pretty hard. I don’t know if it rained all through the night but when we showed back up on Saturday morning the track was still partially wet. So morning practices were delayed until the track was completely dry and by the time everything was good, our Supersport practice turned into a 25 minute qualifying session. That really didn’t throw us off too bad and I ended up finishing the session in 11th place. I was happy where I ended up because I’d be starting on the third row and everyone that was in front of me wasn’t going that much faster. I knew it would be a good Supersport race with the times being so close.

After our little practice/qualifying session around noon, all I had left for Saturday was the FX race. I knew the start would be important if I was going to try to hang with the top 7 or 8 guys, so I tried to ride real aggressive in the first few corners. My jump off the line was good and I got into about 8th place right away but the red flag stopped us after completing only two laps. On the restart, I didn’t get as good of a launch and I got held up in the first chicane. It took me a couple of laps to get around a few guys that were holding me up and by the time I got clear track, I had already lost touch with the lead pack. I was in 11th and didn’t have a very exciting race going because I was alone for most of it, but on the last lap, Chris Peris, who was running 10th, fell in turn six and handed me a top ten finish. My times were consistent during the race but I was having a few issues with the rear suspension while I was accelerating. So we came up with a few ideas to try to get me going quicker for Sunday’s Supersport race.

Sunday morning was nice and dry and the morning Supersport practice felt pretty good. We tried a little change to the rear suspension and the bike felt better in a few areas of the track. I felt pretty confident going into the race and I felt like I could keep up a faster pace for a longer time compared to the FX race. The start was just as important in the Supersport race and I got into a good position early and held on to a big group of riders. Including me, there were six of us all in a pack racing for 4th place. I was sitting on the tail end of the group and started turning lap times about half a second faster then what I had qualified at. I was comfortable running that pace but I couldn’t quite get out of turn 5 and turn 7 hard enough to hang with those guys. I could catch up on the brakes but I couldn’t match their drive off of the corners. I held that position all the way to the end of the race and ended up finishing 9th. When I came in and checked the results on the monitor, I finished only 11 seconds off of the leader and turned the 6th fastest time of the race. The whole team was pretty excited that we finished both races without any crashes or mechanical issues. But besides just finishing both races, they were both top tens and I felt pretty good about that. Atlanta has been a very difficult track for me and I feel like I’ve finally conquered it by doing well and not crashing. We had some extra help over the weekend from Sam Lehrfeld at Kneedraggers.com, and Don Finnely helping with suspension, and I felt like it helped me get going as fast as I did. I feel real good about the last race at Laguna and can’t wait to get back on track!

More, from a press release issued by USGPRU:

PJ Jacobsen Victorious at Road Atlanta

The USGPRU headed for Road Atlanta last weekend for the penultimate round of the 2007 season. The AMA pro series hosted the weekend, which allowed many of our young racers to rub elbows with some of their heroes and meet their future teammates and competitors. The weekend started out with a session of the Apex Academy, hosted by 1993 World 500GP Champion, Kevin Schwantz. Twenty of the USGPRU racers all listened to Kevin as he described the fast line around the Road Atlanta circuit as well as a few stories from his illustrious racing career. 

The Saturday qualifying session had 41 riders ripping off fast laps around the race track. Fourteen-year-olds, PJ Jacobsen and Kris Turner battled for pole position with PJ finally claiming the slot with a time of 1:34.205. Kris was only .5 seconds behind PJ and certainly still in the hunt. Nobi Iso and Elena Myers were able to round out the rest of the front row. 

The weather cooperated Sunday as the skies threatened rain, but held off long enough to get the race underway. The green light saw Iso catapult his Aprilia into the lead heading into turn one, closely followed by Myers, Turner, and Toriano Wilson. PJ got a very poor start, but proceeded to mow through the crowd and caught up with Turner by the second lap. Myers was shown a ‘meatball’ flag for jumping the start though and had to roll in to the hot pit for a stop-n-go penalty. While she was in serving her penalty, Floridian, Steve Wenner highsided his Honda RS125 in turn 10b, bringing out the red flag, and stopping the race. The 8-lap restart was made from original grid positions. And in a picture perfect replay, Iso again put his Aprilia out into the lead with Myers right on his rear wheel. Myers couldn’t complete another lap though as her Honda suffered an electrical failure and had to retire. Turner was riding like a man possessed, and ducked under Iso in T-6. But the power of the Aprilia allowed Iso to drive right by again down the long back straight. PJ wasn’t about to let these guys have all the fun, and joined in to make for a 3-way battle royal at the front. Turner led for 4 of the 8 laps, Iso for 2, and PJ for the remaining 2 laps. But the only lap that counts is the final lap, and for that, PJ was able to slip through some lap traffic and finished just under 1 second ahead of Turner and Iso. 

While all this was going on up front, there was a six-way battle for fourth place between Tyler Odom, Melissa Paris, Royce McLean, Toriano Wilson, Lloyd Worrell, and Miles Thornton. The oldest racer of the crowd was a whopping 23 years old! The battle raged all race long, but the final lap saw Worrell and McLean pull a little gap on the rest of the group. It appeared that Worrell had the spot wrapped up coming down the hill into the final corner, but McLean held the throttle WFO, rode up on the curbing around the outside of Worrell, and clinched the position by inches at the line. The crowd sighed a collective breath when the 12-year-old McLean popped out from behind Worrell at the line with his fist pumping in the air! 

The USGPRU would like to thank Kevin Schwantz for participating in this round of the Apex Academy, as well as Marnie Lincoln for helping to get the event all set up. Thanks also to Keith Kizer and Morgan Broadhead for allowing us to come out and race with the Pro series. Finally, thank you to all of the staff at the Road Atlanta raceway and special thanks to the corner workers and medical staff for their hospitality and assistance throughout the weekend. 

The final round of the USGPRU 2007 season will be held at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, OH the weekend of 22 September. 

125GP Race Results: 1. Patrick Jacobsen -Honda RS125 2. Kris Turner -Honda RS125 3. Nobi Iso -Aprilia RS125 4. Royce McClean -Yamaha TZ125 5. Lloyd Ramsey -Honda RS125 6. Melissa Paris -Aprilia RS125 7. Toriano Wilson -Honda RS125 8. Tyler Odom – Honda RS125 9. Chase Vivion – Honda RS125 10. Cassidy Heiser -Honda RS125 11. Shannon Caisey -Honda RS125 12. Hayden Gillim -Honda RS125 13. Leon Cortes -Honda RS125 14. John Hjelm -Honda RS125 15. Kevin Murray -Yamaha TZ125 16. Steve Scott -Yamaha TZ125 17. Corey Rech -Honda RS125 18. Merle Eschman -Honda RS125 19. Brandon Warren -Honda RS125 20. Connor LeFrance -Honda RS125 21. Jake Mormon -Honda RS125 22. Tony Wang -Honda RS125 23. Allen Campbell -Honda RS125 24. Miles Thornton -Honda RS125 25. Scott Thompson -Honda RS125 26. Corey Alexander -Honda RS125 27. Robert Terando -Honda RS125 28. John Long -Yamaha TZ125 29. Justin Long -Yamaha TZ125 30. Marcus Matthews -Honda RS125 31. Scotty VanHatten -Honda RS125 32. Duane Hixon -Honda RS125 33. Adam Neese -Honda RS125 34. Christopher Terheyden -Honda RS125 35. Antoine Richards -Honda RS125 36. Elena Myers -Honda RS125 37. Steve Thompson -Honda RS125 DNF Steve Wenner -Honda RS125 DNF Barrett Long -Yamaha TZ125 DNS Paul Hoyt Nelson -Honda RS125 

Current Top-5 Points – National 125GP class 1. Patrick Jacobsen 300 2. Nobi Iso 260 3. Benny Solis 236 4. Tyler Odom 150 5. Jon Schendel 130 

Current Top-5 Points – National 250GP class 1. Ryan Ferris 250 2. Eddy Brunet 222 3. Vincent Rolleri 166 4. Kyle Ferris 148 — Mark Kelly 148

More, from a press release issued by Rockwall Honda:

TOP TEN RESULTS FOR ROCKWALL HONDA RACERS IN ATLANTA

The Rockwall Honda completed the Road Atlanta weekend with Ryan Elleby and Ryan Andrews earning top ten results in the Formula Xtreme race after the teammates put on a stellar battle. Racer Ben Thompson competed one of the team’s Supersport bikes last weekend and impressed before retiring from the race with a mechanical problem.

Saturday’s Formula Xtreme race saw the Rockwall Honda riders compete for eighth position as the Elleby and Andrews spent much of the race in close quarters. Andrews took eighth and Elleby was ninth at the flag, just 0.6 seconds behind his teammate. In their race-long battle, Elleby crossed the line was in front for seven of the race’s 13 laps, while Andrews led his teammate six times, including the final lap.

“It was fun,” said Andrews. “After the restart, I got a better start and maintained my position through turn one. After that, it was Elleby and me going at it for the whole race. I haven’t had that much fun since Barber when we had four riders going for position. In the long run, our bikes were so equal it was insane. Both were very fast and we were side-by-side plenty of times. It kept coming down to braking battles at the end of the straights. I had a blast out there.”

“I think my tire might have lasted a little longer and that might have been the deciding factor,” added Andrews.

Elleby’s result was all the more impressive, given that he crashed before the red flag and the team had to make some fixes to his CBR600RR. “It was a great battle out there with Ryan,” he said. “The crew did a great job of getting the bike back in the race.”

Andrews took 15th in the Supersport race, while guest rider Ben Thompson had a mechanical issue.

“I got a decent start but I got pinched in turn one,” said Andrews. ” We dropped back some, but I clicked off laps in the race and made up a few positions. We’d struggled with setup some this weekend and my tire was about done by the halfway point. Also, I had one of the biggest saves of my career coming down the hill on the last lap. I tucked the front but I was able to save it and we got 15th.”

Although he was unable to finish the race, Thompson made his mark with the team. “Ben was very sharp and gave us great feedback,” said Rockwall Honda crewchief Robert Ward. “He’s an impressive rider.”

The AMA season finale will be held at Laguna Seca September 15-16.