Henny Ray Abrams | May 1, 2009
M4 Suzuki’s Jason DiSalvo started last and clocked the fastest time in the Daytona SportBike session at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama.The New Yorker was aiming to topple Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking, who’d gone from sixth to the top with a lap of 1:29.269. Hacking watched as four riders made unsuccessful runs at his time before DiSalvo had the final crack.His lap of 1:28.816 mins. was slower than he’d gone in qualifying, but it was best by .423 secs.The first sort of half of the lap I was maybe a little conservative,” DiSalvo said. “You know, going down into the hairpin there can be…if you run wide you can lose a lot of time. So I kinda went a little easy into there and then the last half of the lap was really good. The whole lap was really good as far as mistakes. I didn’t really miss any apexes or run wide anywhere, so just really happy.”DiSalvo’s previous pole came at Road Atlanta four weeks ago.Hacking will start next to DiSalvo behind the safety car in the weekend’s two races on the scenic track outside of Birmingham, Alabama.Factory Aprilia Millennium Technologies’ Chaz Davies had his best qualifying effort of the year, slotting into the third spot one better than Team Graves Yamaha’s Josh Herrin.DiSalvo’s teammate Martin Cardenas shares row three with Erion Honda’s Jake Zemke, while Steve Rapp is back on row four with Herrin’s teammate Tommy Aquino.The fifth row belongs to Damien Cudlin (Paradigm Motorsports Yamaha) and Geico Motorsports’ Michael Barnes on the first Buell.Missing from Superpole was Bruce Rossmeyers Daytona Racing/RMR/Buell’s Danny Eslick. Eslick, winner of three races this season, missed tying Barnes for a top ten spot by a scant .009 secs.Superpole:1. Jason DiSalvo (Suzuki) 1:28.8162. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki) 1:29.2693. Chaz Davies (Aprilia) 1:29.3194. Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 1:29.4175. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki) 1:29.4896. Jake Zemke (Honda) 1:29.9267. Steve Rapp (Yamaha) 1:30.1288. Tommy Aquino (Yamaha) 1:30.2929. Damien Cudlin (Yamaha) 1:30.41410. Michael Barnes (Buell) 1:30.397
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.
