M4 SportbikeTrackGear.com Suzuki’s David Anthony and his Team Hammer crew battled through adversity at Barber Motorsports Park to score two more strong results in MotoAmerica Supersport action.
The Australian’s weekend looked promising from the opening session, as Anthony hustled his GSX-R600 Supersport machine around the Birmingham, Alabama racecourse at a second-place clip. He continued his strong form in the opening qualifying session, throwing down a 1:28.171 to post the fourth best mark provisionally.
However, Saturday’s second session saw Anthony crash early and heavily damage his primary racebike. He was forced to contest the day’s race on a backup machine but still managed to soldier on to a sixth-place result.
He came back stronger on Sunday thanks to the long hours and hard work of his crew. Anthony took advantage to pick up his sixth top-five finish of the season.
Anthony said, “The weekend started off pretty strong — we were at the pointy end from the beginning. However, I crashed early in qualifying and that was it for us. It dropped us to fifth on the grid, and worse than that, it destroyed the bike. So I raced on the back-up bike and it didn’t go to plan. It was a pretty uneventful race and I just circulated.
“My guys worked all night to build me a new bike, and gave me a machine I liked. I kept the leaders in sight for the first third of the race, but there was nothing I could really do. So I focused on securing fifth to the checkered flag, despite seeing “+0” pretty much the whole way.
Anthony and Team Hammer will be back on track in two weeks’ time as the 2015 MotoAmerica Championship next travels to Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah, on June 26-28.
