Paul Carruthers | March 22, 2009
Danny Eslick did it again today, the Oklahoman riding his Bruce Rossemeyer’s Daytona Racing/RMR Buell to a doubleheader sweep of the Daytona SportBike class at Auto Club Speedway.This time it was tougher with Monster Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking closing in on the back of the Buell in the closing laps – not that many in attendance actually believed that Hacking and his little Kawasaki was going to have enough steam to pass the big Buell at the finish line. The margin of victory was just .099 of a second.Third place, some eight seconds behind, came Team M4 Suzuki’s Jason DiSalvo, the New Yorker nipping his teammate Martin Cardenas at the line by just .031 of a second. Then came Josh Herrin, the Yamaha rider only .168 of a second behind Cardenas. Erion Honda’s Jake Zemke was in the group as well, finishing less than a second behind Herrin.There was another battle to the finish for seventh place with Millennium Technologies Aprilia’s Chaz Davies beating Yamaha’s Tommy Aquino, Four Feathers Racing’s Steve Rapp and Erion Racing’s Chris Peris circulating together for the duration.”It wasn’t as easy as it was yesterday – not that yesterday was easy,” Eslick said. “Whenever I glanced back I saw the big 88 right there on my tailsection.”Hacking had done well to ditch the group battling for third as he moved to the back of Eslick.”We had a good 600 race and I won that as far as I know,” Hacking said after finishing second to the Buell for the second day in a row.The “safety car” was used today for three laps in today’s race – laps three, four and five – after Garrett Carter and Shea Fouchek crashed together.The press conference after the race proved as entertaining as the race itself as DiSalvo and Hacking got into it. DiSalvo took exception with Hacking talking to Eslick while DiSalvo was being inteviewed. DiSalvo told Hacking to be quiet, Hacking basically continued as if nothing was said, and then DiSalvo told Hacking to have some respect. At that point, Hacking said: “I lost all respect for you along time ago.” Then DiSalvo went with “Well, I never had any respect for you.”At that point, the moderator intervened and cooler heads prevailed.
Daytona SportBike
1. Danny Eslick (Buell)
2. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki)
3. Jason DiSalvo (Suzuki)
4. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)
5. Josh Herrin (Yamaha)
6. Jake Zemke (Honda)
7. Chaz Davies (Aprilia)
8. Tommy Aquino (Yamaha)
9. Steve Rapp (Yamaha)
10. Chris Peris (Honda)
Paul Carruthers | Editor
Paul Carruthers took over as the editor of Cycle News in 1993 after serving as associate editor since starting his career at the publication in 1985. Carruthers has covered every facet of the sport in his near-28-year tenure at America's Daily Motorcycle News Source.
