PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREA WILSON
In the case of the Daytona 200—arguably one of America’s most historic motorcycle races—the show will go on, it just won’t be televised. Ran by a new sanctioning body—the American Sportbike Racing Association (ASRA)—who stepped in late last fall after the vacancy was left for the event with the departure of the newly formed AMA Superbike series, MotoAmerica.
This marks the second year in a row that the prestigious event has been absent on TV after last year’s final season of the AMA Pro Road Racing Championship replaced its absent television package with online streaming—Fanschoice.TV.
ASRA was also looking to set up online streaming with Fanschoice.TV, but was unfortunately unable to secure it for this year’s big event and looks towards next year.
“Of course we’re disappointed that we couldn’t make the Fanschoice.TV work out for 2015, but we really appreciate how hard they tried to make this happen,” said ASRA President/ CEO Director of Operations Kevin Elliot. “With that being said, we are working first to make 2015 a successful Daytona 200 and to return the 200 to television in 2016. Having the full year to work with Daytona and our sponsors on the TV package we’re confident the 75th Daytona 200 will be one for the record books.”
While a majority of the U.S.’s top teams chose to sit out of the event, there are 50 riders on the pre-entry list, including five former Daytona 200 winners—Danny Eslick, Josh Herrin, Steve Rapp, David Sadowski Jr. and John Ashmead.
As racers coming out of retirement is in fashion, Sadowski Sr. (1990 winner) will have another crack at the 200 aboard a Honda, while long-time 200 racer (1989 winner) John Ashmead—who’s 85 miles shy of Ricky Orlando—returns put in the miles towards that all-time record.
The 2007 Daytona 200 winner, Steve Rapp, will campaign a Tuned Racing/Tuned Industries Yamaha for a shot at victory number two and the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona.
Last year’s winner Eslick also returns this year to defend his title aboard TOBC Racing Suzuki.
After a rough 2014 in the Moto2 Championship, Herrin (2010 winner) looks to get 2015 off to a much better start with his new team before the MotoAmerica Series’ debut at the Circuit of the Americas next month in Austin.
Also rebounding from a rough season overseas, in this case the World Superbike Championship, Geoff May returns to racing in the U.S. aboard a Suzuki GSX-600 in his self-ran effort—Project Mayday. The team gets its name from its crowd-sourced origin after a ride he had lined up fell through.
Practice gets underway Thursday, with qualifying tentatively scheduled at 10:40 a.m. eastern time on Friday.
And while no online streaming or TV, you can follow the race with Race Monitor App by Karting Coach or on the Race Monitor site here: https://www.race-monitor.com/Live
