Herrin Steals One From Eslick
Henny Ray Abrams | June 19, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, AL, JUNE 19 –
The Daytona SportBike championship continued its unpredictable run with the points lead changing hands for the fourth time in four races.Today the points lead went to RMR Geico’s Danny Eslick, who led every lap but one, the one that counted most. In the last corner of the last of 21 laps around the baked Barber Motorsports Park 2.38-mile road course, Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Herrin slipped around Eslick and beat him to the line by .022 sec. GP Bike Parts Racing’s Cameron Beaubier was a close third, with Yamaha Extended Service/Pat Clark Sports’ Tommy Aquino close on Beaubier. The top four were covered by .448 sec.
Eslick took over the points lead from Vesrah Suzuki’s Cory West, who crashed out of fourth place near the end of the tenth lap. He remounted to finish 20th and earn a single point. Eslick now has 161 points to 157 for Herrin and 141 for Latus Motors Racing’s Jason DiSalvo, the distant sixth place finisher in a race of attrition.West was one of the lucky ones to recover from a crash. Among the unlucky was Celtic Racing/Fast by Ferracci’s PJ Jacobsen, who crashed for the second time in two days. M4 Suzuki’s Dane Westby crashed out of second on the ninth lap going down the turn seven hill. His front end appeared to wash out. Turners Cycle Racing’s Kris Turner should have crashed, but didn’t. Turner nearly high-sided in the final corner of the 12th lap, gathering it up and avoiding what could have been a disastrous encounter with the guardrail. He regained his composure to finish seventh.
Daytona SportBike Results:
1. Josh Herrin (Yamaha)
2. Danny Eslick (Suzuki)
3. Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha)
4. Tommy Aquino (Yamaha)
5. Taylor Knapp (Suzuki)
6. Jason DiSalvo (Ducati)
7. Kris Turner (Suzuki)
8. Tyler OHara (Yamaha)
9. Barrett Long (Ducati)
10. Tyler Odom (Honda)
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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.
