MotoAmerica 2024
Round One – Daytona
Saturday
King of the Baggers Race Two
The second and final King of the Baggers contest concluded Daytona Bike Week 2024 in fine style.
The Indian pairing of Tyler O’Hara and his rookie team-mate Troy Herfoss both got away well to lead the horde of Harleys into the long left-hander. Kyle Wyman then split the Indian duo to move up to second place behind Herfoss, and that pair started to make a small break over the field.
Wyman took the lead on the banking, but as that duo tussled, O’Hara, Rispoli, and Gillim started to reel them back in.
Tyler O’Hara took the lead with four laps to run and kept his nose in front over the following lap.
With two laps to go, Herfoss was back into the lead and had built a handy buffer over Wyman.
Just when it looked as though Herfoss had victory secured, a small mistake allowed Wyman to close in. The Harley rider then got a much better run on to the banking to take the victory.
Wyman’s team-mate James Rispoli made it onto the podium in third.
Troy Herfoss set the fastest lap of the race by two-tenths of a second and took two second-place finishes from his debut weekend in the championship.
Kyle Wyman
“It was definitely a different scenario than yesterday. Actually, now that I play it back in my mind, I do see that he got in there way deep and you had to take all of that second kerb. So, yeah. That makes a lot more sense to me of why. It felt the same as yesterday to me, except I was way further back approaching it at Mach whatever, because I was just trying to make sure I could sniff the draft. I had a problem in the second-to-last lap. I lost a quick-shifter, so I was scrambling trying to shift the thing. It’s not an easy bike to shift, even with a quick-shifter, so I had to gather it up and that’s the exact time that Troy put his head down. So, he built, like, a second-and-a-half gap, maybe more. On the last lap, I think I was taking chunks out of that in the infield. I think I ran a pretty good infield split, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to get there, even to have a sniff of the draft. Then the next thing I know, I’m going through the dirt again in the same spot as we did yesterday. Just hoping and praying again I’m going to get to the line first. Threw a little juke off NASCAR 4 and tried to shake him off, and he held on.”
King of the Baggers Race Two Results
- Kyle Wyman – Harley
- Troy Herfoss – Indian +0.137s
- James Rispoli – Harley +1.518s
- Tyler O’Hara – Indian +3.200s
- Hayden Gillim – Harley +3.462s
- Kyle Ohnsorg – Indian +7.197s
- Jake Lewis – Harley +15.804s
- Cory West – Harley +16.181s
- Travis Wyman – Harley +16.536
- Rocco Landers – Harley +17.579s
King of the Baggers Points
- Kyle Wyman 50
- Troy Herfoss 40
- James Rispoli 32
- Hayden Gillim 24
- Kyle Ohnsorg 20
- Tyler O’Hara 19
- Rocco Landers 17
- Travis Wyman 15
- Max Flinders 12
- Bobby Fong 9
Mission Super Hooligan Race Two
The Harley-Davidson riders dusted the Indian riders off the start line to take the first four positions early on.
Troy Herfoss passed two of them to move up to third place but was then shuffled back to fifth once again before the end of the opening lap as Cory West and Cody Wyman tussled over the lead.
Nothing separated the top six at half-race distance and due to the unique lay-out of Daytona tactical games were being played out, with some riders distinctly preferring not to lead.
At the last lap board Herfoss started moving forward in that group, slicing his way up to third in the space of two turns, then looked to change his mind and deliberately run wide to allow riders back through.
It was all going to come down to who timed their slipstream run around the banking the best that would decide the victory. The top six were almost six-wide at times on the banking, jinking and thrusting, but when they crossed the stripe it was Cory West in front of Jake Lewis while Cody Wyman made it an all Harley podium that was covered by only six-hundredths of a second.
West’s victory the maiden win for Harley’s Pan America.
The S&S Indian FTR 1200 pairing of Tyler O’Hara and Troy Herfoss were next across the stripe.
Between the winner and sixth placed Travis Wyman there was only 0.155 of a second.
Mission Super Hooligan Race Two Results
- Cory West – Harley
- Jake Lewis – Harley +0.020s
- Cody Wyman – Harley +0.060s
- Tyler O’Hara – Indian +0.081s
- Troy Herfoss – Indian +0.150s
- Travis Wyman – Harley +0.155s
- Hawk Mazzotta – Indian +16.441s
- Hayden Schultz – Harley +16.547s
- Nate Kern – BMW +16.638s
- Stefano Mesa – Energica +17.897s
Mission Super Hooligan Points
- Cory West 41
- Troy Herfoss 36
- Tyler O’Hara 33
- Cody Wyman 29
- Jake Lewis 20
Supersport Daytona 200
Tom Toparis didn’t make the start of the Daytona 200 due to problems with the Astro Mar Suzuki that the team had chased all weekend but failed to solve.
Amongst the 57 starters, there was quite an attrition rate, with the likes of Peter Hickman, Josh Hayes, Richard Cooper, Xavi Fores and David Anthony all failing to finish the 57 laps of the 3.51-mile Daytona International Speedway.
Josh Herrin took his third Daytona 200 victory in dominant fashion aboard the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati.
This year’s bad luck award went to Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Richie Escalante, who spent most of the afternoon trying to chase down Herrin and had second place in the bag until running out of gas on the final lap. Fortunately, Escalante at least managed to coast to the finish line, but he lost three positions in the process and crossed the line a heart-breaking fifth.
For all practical purposes, the race was won during the first of two pit stops on the 17th lap when Herrin and Escalante pitted for fuel and tyres at the same time. While Herrin’s stop was lightning-fast, Escalante’s was the opposite.
Escalante didn’t give up and got to within five-seconds of Herrin after the second pit stop, but he would run out of laps in his pursuit before simply running out of gas. His misfortune moved his team-mate and pole-sitter Tyler Scott to second, 45.660 seconds behind Herrin. It also propelled Vesrah Racing’s Hayden Gillim to third for his first career Daytona 200 podium in what was his third attempt.
The final rider to pass a coasting Escalante was Wrench Motorcycle’s Bobby Fong, one of those who took a turn at the front of the pack early in the 200. Fong also incurred a three-second pit-lane violation penalty. Things got worse for Fong post-race when he was DQ’d for having an oversized fuel tank. As a result, Fong’s DQ moved Escalante up to fourth.
YART’s Karel Hanika and his teammate Marvin Fritz were fifth and sixth, respectively, with the Czech and the German finishing some 11 seconds apart as they led the large international contingent in their first-ever 200s.
Two-time Daytona 200 winner Brandon Paasch was seventh on the third Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki, with the New Jerseyan just .115 of a second behind Fritz.
Boulder Motor Sports’ Stefano Mesa rode the team’s Ducati Panigale V2 to eighth, with Team BATTLAX’s three-time Canadian Superbike Champion Ben Young ninth and Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Teagg Hobbs rounding out the top 10.
2024 Supersport Daytona 200 Results
- Josh Herrin – Ducati
- Tyler Scott – Suzuki +45.660
- Hayden Gillim – Suzuki +54.637
- Richie Escalante – Suzuki +63.197s
- Karel Hanika – Yamaha +86.213s
- Marvin Fritz – Yamaha +97.755s
- Brandon Paasch – Suzuki +97.870s
- Stefano Massa – Ducati +1 lap
- Ben Young – Suzuki +1 lap
- Teagg Hobbs – Suzuki +1 lap
- Kayla Yaakov – Ducati +1 lap
- Matt Truelove – Suzuki +1 lap
- PJ Jacobsen – Ducati +1 lap
- Danny Eslick – Triumph +1 lap
- Corey Alexander – Ducati +1 lap
- Diego Perez – Yamaha +2 laps
- Carl Soltisz – Suzuki +2 laps
- Blake Davis – Yamaha +2 laps
- Danilo Lewis – Yamaha +2 laps
- Trevor Daley – Suzuki +3 laps
- Shane Maggs – Yamaha +3 laps
- Jason Waters – Kawasaki +3 laps
- Taylor Knapp – Triumph +4 laps
- Alan Phillips – Kawasaki +4 laps
- Matthew Simpson – Yamaha +4 laps
Twins Cup
After taking the victory in Twins Cup race one last year, Gus Rodio went one better and did the double this year, winning Friday’s BellissiMoto Twins Cup race one and finishing out his Daytona event with a win in Saturday’s race two on his Aprilia. Rodio won each of the two races by more than 11 seconds.
On Saturday, second place went to Rocco Landers aboard the brand-new Suzuki GSX-8R.
Third-place finisher was Rodio’s teammate Alessandro Di Mario, the 15-year-old recording the second MotoAmerica podium result of his young career.
