MILLVILLE, N.J. (Sept. 13) – Dane Westby put his GEICO Motorcycle Honda in the provisional ninth spot in the GoPro Daytona SportBike grid on Friday at the New Jersey Lottery Devil’s Showdown, this weekend’s stop in the GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Series.
Westby said the practice was smooth in the morning but the team encountered some stumbling blocks once the first qualifier rolled around in the afternoon at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
“It wasn’t quite turning the way I wanted,” Westby said. “I was trying to turn it too hard physically instead of establishing a rhythm. We’re going to address that for the next session.”
Westby recorded a best lap of 1 minute, 24.399 seconds during the nearly hour-long session.
“We know where we need to work, so we’re not out in left field,” he said. “I know we’re still in the game. Some of the problems we were having were coming from the rear of the bike. We’ll probably do some suspension adjustments and go from there.”
The bike telemetry showed Westby had brilliant moments in individual segments but never really strung it all together at once.
“I was kind of sporadic during qualifying,” Westby said. “I think that ties into trying to ride the bike too hard. Once we get the bike and I a little more friendly, we’ll have a really good chance at this track just because of how well it suits our bike.”
Westby decided to play it conservatively as the qualifying session wore on.
“I’m counting on coming back strong for the second qualifier tomorrow,” Westby said. “I knew it was out there. I pushed in the early part of the session, but when it wasn’t coming I wasn’t going to do something risky and put myself on the ground.”
Saturday’s qualifying session gets under way at 8:50 a.m. EDT from New Jersey Motorsports Park. Race 1 of the Devil’s Showdown for the GoPro Daytona SportBikes begins at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Race 2 will be at 3 p.m. on Sunday. CBS Sports Network will air Race 1 at 1 p.m. EDT on Sunday and Race 2 at 3 p.m.
