Cardenas Finds a Friday Flyer

Henny Ray Abrams | June 4, 2010

ELKHART LAKE, WI, JUNE 4: Monster M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas narrowly topped Team Graves Yamaha’s Josh Herrin in first Daytona SportBike qualifying at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.Cardenas was fastest on his seventh and final lap of the 4.05-mile road course, but that wasn’t necessarily the plan.”We were having a little bit of problems with the brakes,” he said his lap of 2:21.136 mins., which edged Herrin by .055 secs. “This morning and this afternoon we were just trying some different things and this last run we tried something with the disks.”And, no, I went and pushed as hard as I could for two laps and one of them was the fastest one.”Project 1 Atlanta’s Dane Westby was a few tenths slower than Herrin with Latus Racing’s Steve Rapp (Duc) at the end of a close provisional front row: First to fourth were covered by .809 secs.Geico Powersports/RMR’s Danny Eslick was behind Cardenas on the second row, which was tighter packed than the front. Vesrah Suzuki’s Cory West, Team Graves Yamaha’s Tommy Aquino, and Vesrah Suzuki’s Chris Fillmore were covered by just over half a second.Project 1 Atlanta’s Clinton Seller (Yam) and Celtic Racing’s P.J. Jacobsen filled out the top ten.

Qualifying:

1. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki) 2:21.136

2. Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 2:21.191

3. Dane Westby (Yamaha) 2:21.443

4. Steve Rapp (Ducati) 2:21.945

5. Danny Eslick (Suzuki) 2:22.067

6. Cory West (Suzuki) 2:22.160

7. Tommy Aquino (Yamaha) 2:22.276

8. Chris Fillmore (Suzuki) 2:22.576

9. Clinton Seller (Yamaha) 2:23.533

10. P.J. Jacobsen (Suzuki) 2:23.976

Henny Ray Abrams | Contributing Editor

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.