2023 Daytona 200

The past few years it seems in nearly all levels of high quality 2-wheel racing the game has turned into more of a cat and mouse for 90% of the duration with the leaders breaking away, then following the "lets just keep our powder dry and work together" mantra, then with 2-3 laps remaining, the general consensus is that the gloves come off and actual racing begins.

I think JH2 and RE54's idea's of when to actually transition from maintenance mode to attack mode is what caught Ritchie out - he was likely thinking another 2-3 laps and Herrin wanted to get the party started earlier and threw it up the inside.

Sucks for Ritchie and he was my pick to win it but even knowing Herrin has never been a fav of mine, I can't really blame him either as he had room and an experienced guy like Ritchie should have been able to react a little more proactively to avoid the crash.

 

It relates to the fact that at Daytona it's about the draft and pit stops and how it sets up the finish. There's really no other race track in the US where you can catch the leader if he has a 7 second or so lead. They chased Cam down last year right?

 

If JH makes this exact same pass at every race for the rest of the season and it results in a front runner crashing out of every race, is he entitled to do that?

If you are going up the inside of someone and your trajectory is such that the rider in front must take evasive action to avoid a collision, you need to give the rider in front enough time to react. JH came from so far back that RE was not able to tell he was there till the last 1/2 a second.

RE managed to make an adjustment based on the assumption that JH's trajectory would be similar to his and as such tried to give him a bit of room, but it wasn't enough given the intersecting line that JH was on.

 

I was watching the laps as they were passing each other back n forth. Then I noticed both of them turn around in the infield to check if there was a freight train coming. At that point, Ritchie should have been thinking it's time to let JH do all the work up front. Unfortunately, either he didn't play out that scenario in his strategy or he got distracted with trying to beat Herrin outright and that didn't work out too well.

 

Completely agree. I’m not a Herrin hater but I’m surprised how many people here are defending that move, especially considering how many laps were left.

 

I would like to hear from those people if every round of their local club race someone put a pass like that on them.

 

RE lifted the bike this much but it wasn't enough given their different trajectories. He would have had to lift and change his direction of travel to avoid the collision and that's a lot to do in the amount of time he had to do it in. It was an extremely late pass attempt.

 

have any of you guys raced before? If I get my front tire in front of you that line is mine and I don’t care if it runs us out to the grass… if someone crams it up inside of me I’ll check up and dive back underneath… it’s racing damn… I don’t remember any of this crybaby shit when the greats are really scraping it out…

yeah my lawn get off I’ll see myself out

 

whole lot more to making a good raceworthy pass than just "if i get my front tire in front of you that line is mine..." .
lots of things to consider. i'm not defending or accusing the JH2 move, just sayin.

 

I think we should all just calm down about this pass.

Hey! I got an idea...let's ask the superbike genius what he thinks about the whole JH-RE pass. I bet he will be fair and truthful

 

Come on man…….don’t leave so soon again! You help keep it interesting Besides, you haven’t prematurely laid any members to rest yet

 

Melka you know what I meant and we’ve actually raced I’m pretty sure…. But back when we had some special 205H and your shitty 220c it was fun…

for the record I almost never passed anyone inside… I always went the long way round the outside…. Damn late brakers can have those inside passes…

I am also of the vantage point of taking out only a very very few good friends in all my decades of racing, which I am proud of…

 

you know I was actually surprised none of you asked if I had walked on…. You’re all slacking it’s funny until it’s true… man, now I don’t remember which of those old chaps are gone and which ones I prematurely suggested might be…