Knapp takes sixth in NJ superbike race 1

[Bigfattwin]

Millville, NJ -- (Saturday, September 05, 2009) Latus Motors Racing’s Taylor Knapp battled with fellow Buell 1125RR rider Cory West and Yoshimura Suzuki’s Blake Young for most of today’s 23-lap AMA Pro Racing American Superbike race at New Jersey Motorsports Park to finish sixth, his highest finishing position on a Buell this season.
Starting from ninth on the grid, Knapp made a dramatic pass from eighth to sixth in Turn 1 on lap 19, then slid back to eighth before reclaiming sixth position on the final lap. West finished in eighth position, one place behind Young.
“I got a double draft on Blake and Cory and Blake, I had my momentum rolling, and I just slid it in there in Turn one. It was a real close race between me and Blake and Cory, we were going back and forth the whole race,” Knapp said. “On the last lap, I knew Blake was a little slow in Turn 3, and Corey was behind him, trying to get through and he actually hit into the back of Blake and they stood each other up. I sat back and saw it happen and took them both. It was perfect and I just hung on for the rest of the lap.”
West jumped out to a good start from his eighth place grid spot, running as high as fifth in the early going before dropping back into a tooth-and-nail fight with Knapp and Young.
“I got a really good start and got to hang with [Aaron] Yates, Tommy [Hayden], [Ben] Bostrom and [Larry] Pegram. I passed Bostrom and Larry, but we just didn’t have the straight line speed. They whittled away on me on the front straight and I dropped back,” West said. “I had one little mistake with about three to go, that’s when Blake and Taylor got by. But we had a really good race today and we know a few things we can do to try to make the bike a little better and hopefully we can stay with that front pack tomorrow.”
With a fifth place finish in today’s Daytona SportBike, Bruce Rossmeyer’s Daytona Racing/RMR/GEICO Powersports rider Danny Eslick moved one step closer to clinching the 2009 Daytona SportBike championship. However, today’s Race 1 win by Graves Yamaha’s Josh Herrin, the only other rider with a chance of overtaking him, means Eslick will have to wait one more day for a chance to claim his and Buell Motorcycle Company’s first AMA Pro Racing championship.
With Eslick now leading Herrin by 22 points, 373-351, if Herrin repeats tomorrow with a win and leads the most race laps to claim the maximum 31 available points remaining, Eslick must score at least nine points with a 12th place or higher finish in tomorrow’s final season race to hold him off for the championship.
In today’s two-hour SunTrust Moto-GT endurance race, the James Gang/Hoban Brothers Racing team of Paul James and Shawn Higbee finished third in the Moto-GT1 class, while the Liberty Waves/H-D/Buell of Antelope Valley team of Eric Pinson and Eric Haugo were officially eliminated from contention for the class championship by an early race crash, which allowed second place GT1-class finisher Crozier Motorsports to clinch the class championship a race ahead of the season finale 8 Hours of Daytona in October.
“Looks like we had a front push in the really fast right hander out in the back section, I guess turn 6 or 7 probably 100 plus, [the bike] low-sided, caught the grass and proceeded to get airborne a couple times. It was really hard to swallow today. But that’s racing,” said team owner Eric Pinson. “We’ll be back down at Daytona for the eight hours to take care of second place in the points. To have as many podiums as we did this year, we’re still happy.”
In other results, GEICO Powersports/RMR rider Michael Barnes finished 19th and Latus Motors Racing’s Knapp finished 21st in Daytona SportBike and Bartels’ H-D/Buell/Higbee-racing.com’s Shawn Higbee finished 18th in American Superbike. All were riding Buell 1125Rs. Founded by visionary motorcycle designer and former privateer racer Erik Buell in 1983, Buell Motorcycle Company, a subsidiary of Harley-Davidson, Inc., produces sport motorcycles, motorcycle parts, accessories and apparel, including the 1125R superbike, 1125CR café racer, and air-cooled XB-series Ulysses, Firebolt, and Lightning. To learn more about Buell motorcycles, or to locate the dealer nearest you, log onto www.buell.com.