Thornton on top in SuperSport
Henny Ray Abrams | March 10, 2011
DAYTONA BEACH, FL, MARCH 10 – Run 1 Racing’s Miles Thornton (Yam) earned the provisional pole in qualifying for the AMA Pro SuperSport race on an overcast day at Daytona International Speedway.The 16-year-old Georgian lapped the 3.51-mile Speedway in 1:54.888 mins. in the red flag-interrupted late afternoon session. The qualifying session was the only track time for the SuperSport racers, after morning rains washed out practice.Kentuckian Hayden Gillim was .407 sec. slower on his Yamaha YZF-R6. Gillim was well down on top speed to the Ducati 848 of Rata Racing’s Stefano Mesa. Mesa was third fastest, but his 173.67 mph top speed was fastest of all by three miles per hour and a full seven mph faster than Gillim’s.Yamaha-mounted Colombians finished fourth and fifth and separated by only .134 sec. Tomas Puerta was fourth in front of fellow countryman David Gaviria.Sixth fastest, and one of only two Hondas in the field, was North Hollywood’s Benny Solis. Solis was aboard an Erion Racing/Roadracingworld.com/Red Bull Honda CBR600RR, which carried him to a fast lap that as just over a second off Thornton’s provisional pole time.
SuperSport Qualifying:
1. Miles Thornton (Yamaha) 1:54.888
2. Hayden Gillim (Yamaha) 1:55.295
3. Stefano Mesa (Ducati) 1:55.590
4. Tomas Puerta (Yamaha) 1:55.623
5. David Gaviria (Yamaha) 1:55.757
6. Benny Solis (Honda) 1:55.918
7. Eric Stump (Yamaha) 1:56.126
8. Dustin Dominguez (Aprilia) 1:56.143
9. James Rispoli (Suzuki) 1:56.502
10. Elena Myers (Suzuki) 1:56.925
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.
