Back in December I committed to running the 200, started on the logistics and training. I partnered with Ken Hill Coaching for physical prep, nutrition coaching, meal planning, etc. I partnered with Moto Corse Performance in Fort Lauderdale for bike prep and crew support. Chris Boy from Moto Corse is a friend and is going to help me with the mental aspect of riding flat out for 200 miles. Ken Hill immediately set me up with Phil Horowitz, AMA racer and a member of his Ken Hill Coaching team for detailed nutrition analysis and physical training. Since I am in Florida, everything will be done through email, phone and some other tools such as Strava (cycling / running app). Phil gave me a pretty good nutrition program to start on right away. I travel a lot for work, 3-4 days a week but we were still able to come up with a program that fits my schedule. I had to transition from running 2-3 times per week with strength training a couple of days to a more cycling focused program. It has been about 8 weeks. Of course the holidays were tough, but even with all of the distractions, I am about 10 pounds lighter and feeling much stronger and more flexible. After about 6 weeks I attended a track day, and was quite surprised how much better I felt on the bike- moving around the bike felt much more natural, body position came more easily and it felt like I was not even exerting myself doing the laps. I also found a place to train on the minibike, so I'm trying to get that in once a week too. So I'm biking 2-3 times a week at 2.5-3 hours per stint, plus once a week cross train or yoga, and one 2 hour minibike outing. At least I am confident I will be physically ready! On the other hand, bike prep is kind of a pain. I ordered $2500 worth of parts right before the holidays....they showed up last week and only one or two things fits. The Quick change gear from Fast Frank is beautiful, but it requires some engineering to work perfectly. The forks have to come apart for the fender mounts to be installed, calipers have to be trimmed down with a grinder. Also we're going to have to Mc Guyver up some kind of rig for the Nemesis TC that I currently run, it takes the place of one of the axle spacers that are normally captive. I bought a tank from Larry Pegram that was used on one of his AMA bikes, it's a beautiful hand crafted aluminum tank that probably holds an extra 10 liters- but Jan 18th they changed the rules and mandated stock capacity tanks. It's going to be too much trouble to refit this one with ping pong balls to reduce capacity, re-fit the dry break fitting I already have, and move the steering damper to fit. So a fuel cell is on order with dry-break already installed. The stock tank is plastic and I'd rather avoid retrofitting that with the dry break. Rumor down here has it that there are over 100 entries anticipated, max track density is 80 so it's going to be the top 80 qualifiers. Still no word on the TV package....
Good luck. Show them how it is done! Edit - I have not missed a Daytona in 20 years (as spectator). This year I may skip, or I may not. But if the talk is of a full grid, it may be worth a hard look.
Unless DIS buys it there won't be TV. I'm sure entry numbers will be up with all the club racers hoping for a huge check.
OH NO! Say it ain't so, we can't have a professional race accessible by mere club racers! Good luck Gino!
Any chance fanschoice will pick it up? What would the logistics of that be? They pay DIS or DIS pays them? Or neither and just mutual benefit for both?
I'll be putting up the Official Rest Home Daytona 200 pool in a week or two. No rush since we're still trying to figure out who's entering. I know Eric Wood is planning to go. Linky
All pro racing is accessible to club racers last I checked as long as you have a certain level of experience...
I got a lot of questions on the clubrace 200 but I'll cut it down to just questions on tires: What tires is Dunlop, Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli and Cheng Shin gonna bring to the race and have they tested them? and will Dunlop, Michelin, Pirelli, Bridgestone or Cheng Shin even support the race because of fears of tire issues? Good luck to those running the 200. Bring cubic yards of cash and your credit cards, you're gonna need 'em.
Pirelli has quite a few tires that have been tested during the CCS Team Challenges and performed well.
Do any of those other guys make an asymmetrical tire for Daytona like Dunlop does or do guys just run the regular rubber. I recall very vividly Vicent Haskovec winning the SSTK race at Daytona that last year before he got hurt and he beat out a bunch of guys on Dunlops and was on Pirellis at the time. Obviously not the 200 but still.
Short answer, yes. There is a Daytona specific tire. However, for sprint races, we have had no issues on production DOTs and slicks on 600s and Jay Farrell gave the production slicks the berries during the TC on a 1000 and they held up fine.
