Barber: AMA SportBike Saturday Results

Barber SportBike

Saturday’s action at Barber Motorsports Park produced some memorable races where some of the championship pieces began to fall into place as the 2010 AMA Pro Road Racing season draws to a close.

In Daytona SportBike presented by AMSOIL, Martin Cardenas rode one of his most measured and complete races of the year in capturing his series high eighth race win of the season and in the process, he took over the points lead from Danny Eslick.

Martin and his M4 Monster Energy Suzuki now lead the Daytona SportBike standings by five points over Eslick and his GEICO Powersports Suzuki by eight over Josh Herrin going into tomorrow’s final race of the Daytona SportBike season.

Taking a surprise second place was Project 1 Atlanta Yamaha rider Clinton Seller. He has been quick all weekend and he pretty much attached himself to the back of Martin’s Suzuki and stayed there for the entire 21 lap race.

Clinton tried on more than one occasion to pass Martin but using excellent judgment and skill, Clinton raced Martin hard but fair and at the end, he was only 0.127 of a second behind at the checkered flag.

It was Danny Eslick that had the most eventful race, he grabbed the early lead but just as quickly, the race was red flagged due to a couple of incidents, Paul Allison went down in turn one and three more motorcycles went off together later on the same lap necessitating a red flag.

On the restart, Cardenas got a much better start and he and Sellers pretty much rode off into the sunset. It was Eslick and a number of other riders including the third contender in the points chase, Team Graves Yamaha rider Josh Herrin who captured much of the focus of the race.

As the bulk of the field was battling early, Herrin and Eslick got together and Herrin was pushed back to seventh place but he recovered well and put his head down to work his way right back up through the field.

He re-passed Eslick on lap six, worked his way up to third and then began chipping away at the first two, at one point he seemed to be making slight progress but at the end, the leaders encountered a big group of slower riders and as Martin and Clinton were able to slice through, Josh was delayed just enough to end his slight chance at victory.

Eslick battled all day and even though he might not have had the outright speed needed to win, as usual he never gave up and finished fifth behind Seller’s Project 1 Atlanta Yamaha teammate, Dane Westby.

With Martin’s win, he moves to the top of the standings with 375, Eslick now is in second with 372 and Herrin is in third with 367.

Again, all bets are off for tomorrow’s race with 31 points up for grabs. As it has all year, the Daytona SportBike race will be a thriller and go right down to the wire.

Superbike Classic
Daytona SportBike Race – Daytona SportBike
September 25, 2010 Barber Motorsports Park
Birmingham, AL

Race Time: 31:24.527
Margin of Victory: 0.127
Best Race Lap: Clinton Seller (1:28.699)