SONOMA, CA, MAY 15: Team Graves Yamaha swept the top two spots in Daytona SportBike qualifying, with Tommy Aquino keeping the pole on the strength of his Friday time while teammate Josh Herrin jumped up into second in the final minute of the 30 minute session late on an overcast morning at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California.Aquino’s lap of 1:38.440 mins. was out of reach for everyone, Aquino included. His best lap of 1:38.966 mins. was over half a second slower than his Friday time, but he still had his second pole in a row.”The track was actually really good for being so cold,” Aquino said. “I saw Josh Hayes in the qualifying session before us go a lot quicker, like four-tenths, so I though I could do that too, but i just put down similar laps to everyone else and I’m happy about that.”I’m just happy knowing that yesterday’s pace was really good, so it held off today’s.”Daytona 200 winner Herrin made the most of his lap, his time of 1:38.827 mins. coming late in the session.”Today we waited until about 10 minutes to go and saw what we needed to do and went out and did it and it was good,” Herrin said.Latus Racing’s Steve Rapp (Duc), whose career began racing in AFM events at Infineon Raceway, qualified third fastest at 1:38.922 mins. Rapp attributed part of the team’s success to it being a one-rider team, which allowed them to concentrate on Rapp’s needs.”Going into the session, I didn’t think the track was going to be any better, so we focused on race set-up,” Rapp began, “but it turned into trying to go fast again. The last ten minutes of the session we refocused on trying to go fast, but the bike’s pretty good and I’m sure after today’s race we’ll have more for tomorrow.”Stockton’s Bobby Fong rode the DNA Energy Drink Ducati 748 to the fourth fastest time and the first front row starting spot of his career.”We had little problems yesterday and the team’s been working hard all night,” Fong, from Eureka, Ca. said. “Every race the team’s been working really hard and we’ve been improving dramatically.”Geico Powersports/RMR Racing’s Danny Eslick qualified fifth fastest with a lap of 1:39.052 mins. Next to him on the second row were Monster M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas, then two Yamahas; Project 1 Atlanta’s Dane Westby in front Lenny Hale on the Hale Racing Yamaha R6.
Results:
1. Tommy Aquino (Yamaha) 1:38.440
2. Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 1:38.827
3. Steve Rapp (Ducati) 1:38.922
4. Bobby Fong (Ducati) 1:38.990
5. Danny Eslick (Suzuki) 1:39.052
6. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki) 1:39.214
7. Dane Westby (Yamaha) 1:39.234
8. Lenny Hale (Yamaha) 1:39.300
9. Clinton Seller (Yamaha) 1:39.526
10. Cory West (Suzuki) 1:40.331
