Herrin on Provisional Pole at Mid-Ohio

Henny Ray Abrams | July 16, 2010

LEXINGTON, OHIO, JULY 16 – Team Graves Yamaha’s Josh Herrin earned the Daytona SportBike provisional pole with a fast lap late on a warm and sunny afternoon at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.Herrin was always at or near the top of the order during the red flag-interrupted 50-minute session on the 2.4-mile road course. With just over three minutes to go, Team Latus Motors Racing’s Steve Rapp (Duc) was on top, only to get knocked back to second by Geico Powersports/RMR Suzuki’s Danny Eslick. Just minutes later, Herrin laid down his fast lap to hold the overnight pole.Herrin was the only rider in the 1:28’s, his lap of 1:28.732 mins. just over a second off the 1:27.853 that Eslick ran to take last year’s pole. Eslick went on to win both races, his second and final double-header sweep of the season.”It went pretty good,” Herrin said. “We tried the new…earlier this morning we tried the new harder Dunlop front and it didn’t really give any initial feel that was different, but it just lasted a lot longer. We just put 17 laps on it and it was brand new feeling. I was trail braking superhard. Just grabbing a handful of front brakes and it was good. I could trust it.”During this session we went out on the tires from this morning and did a low 29.2 or something that put us up front for a little bit. And then I wanted a new rear, but we didn’t have any. So all we had was the harder rear, and I’ve been running the soft all weekend and they said I wouldn’t go nearly as fast on it. And the second I went out on it I went a half second faster. So it’s really good.”I didn’t really trust the front when I put the new rear on, because usually if you put a new rear on with an older front it overgrips, but it was just really solid. So I think we found a really good set-up for the race.”Herrin said there was nothing special about the late run that put him on the provisional pole. His first flying lap was the fast lap of 1:28.732, “but on my timer I thought I saw 29.7. So I was kinda disappointed and I pushed a little bit harder and I ended up doing a 29.2, which I thought was faster, but was really half second slower. So, it wasn’t really anything special. Just trying to be consistent.”Eslick ended up second in front of Rapp, the pair separated by less than a tenth.M4 Monster Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas filled out the provisional front row.

Results:

1. Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 1:28.732

2. Danny Eslick (Suzuki) 1:29.167

3. Steve Rapp (Ducati) 1:29.255

4. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki) 1:29.457

5. Tommy Aquino (Yamaha) 1:29.659

6. Dane Westby (Yamaha) 1:30.249

7. P.J. Jacobsen (Suzuki) 1:30.257

8. Bobby Fong (Ducati) 1:30.357

9. Clinton Seller (Yamaha) 1:30.445

10. Chris Fillmore (Suzuki) 1:30.597