The AHRMA pack got together at Roebling Road in Bloomindale, GA (near Savannah) for the warm-up races for Daytona. It was very cold during practice, but it warmed up a bit for race day and in the beautiful Georgia sunshine I was able to bring home the first ‘W’ of the season.
Click here to see the bikeweek pictures!
We had a week to prepare for the races at Roebling. We needed to get a Ducati 1000DS ready for the ‘Battle of Twins Formula 2’ and ‘Sound of Thunder’ races, and a ’78 Ducati 900ss for the ‘Vintage Superbike Heavyweight’ and ‘Formula Vintage’ races.
The 1000 was ready to race within a day, but the 900 needed a complete facelift. My dad, Malcolme Tunstall (from Syd’s Cycles) and Joel worked full-time to get the bike ready but eventually just fell short. So we left for Roebling with only one bike.
A new track, new bike and a new set of Rev’It leathers needed some getting used to, but after the second session I had everything dialed in. The laptimes came down quickly and at the end of the day I felt really confident for the races.
Raceday started of with the BoT F2 race. From the second row I took the hole-shot into the first corner and put my head down. Last years champ, Robbie McLendon was right on my tail all race long and I was able to keep him at about half a second for the entire race. However, I took a look over my shoulder on the last lap and Rob was right in my face. DAMN! I really put my head down for the last couple of corners and secured the victory!
OH YEAH!:)
The Sound of Thunder was the second race and I didn’t really have high hopes for this race, because I has to race against Ducati 999’s and Triumph 675’s. But to my surprise I had a great start from 11th and went into the first corner in 3rd position. I was able to close the gap to the to Truimps in the twisty sections of the track, but they pulled away from me on the straights. In the third lap Mark Hatten came by on his 999 and I really had to push to stay with these guys. I was doing 2 seconds quicker laptimes than in my previous race, which was absolutely amazing. I mean, I was keeping up with these water cooled Supersports and Superbikes with my air cooled 2-valve. Just as I was checking out a few places I could take a spot from these guys, the race got red-flagged and was called. So I took 4th place, which wasn’t unrespectable at all.
The Dunlops worked really amazing on the Ducati and the Rev’It leathers felt superb! I’m really really happy with the start of this season. Confidence level up big time:)
We're going back to St Petersburg to get the Ducati 900ss ready for Daytona. We’ll have to work hard, but I think we’ll make the deadline this time.
I’ll keep in touch.
Peter
AHRMA #312
