Friday, October 20, 2006 - World of BMW Press Release
More than 100 riders and 39 high performance sport twin motorcycles - including several BMWs - have been entered for Saturday's 8 Hours At Daytona, the inaugural event in the new SunTrust MOTO-ST Series.
The teams and riders will do battle on the 3.56-mile, 14-turn layout at Daytona International Speedway, all with the goal of writing their names in the history books. Saturday's eight-hour endurance race will also mark the first motorcycle night race at the 'World Centre of Racing' since 1985.
A number of BMW Motorrad USA dealers have decided to support and field teams in this weekend's race, including BMW of San Jose; Mainline BMW and BMW of Atlanta (working as a single team); BMW of Daytona, and Touring Sport BMW.
As a testament to their generosity and devotion to the brand, the first three dealers listed here have combined efforts under the management of Udo Gietl, who as a tuning specialist and team manager enjoyed historic victories with Butler & Smith's R 90 S team back in the 1970s. Two further BMW dealers are also racing with individual teams, and Udo has been providing advice and technical suggestions for both of them wherever necessary.
The favourites for the overall win look to be the M4 EMGO Suzuki team, which was founded 26 years ago by Bruce Hammer and John Ulrich. It has had more success than any other team in American endurance racing and will be competing in the Supersport Twins (SST) class, which features motorcycles making between 90 and 118 horsepower. This class should produce the overall winners of this event.
Flying the blue and white roundel for BMW Motorrad will be the No. 46 San Jose BMW R 1200 S with top American BMW rider Nate Kern (above), Belgian former Grand Prix and Superbike star Stephan Mertens and Californian Brian Parriott. The team will also field the No. 4 BMW R 1100 S for Tom Montano and Craig McLean in the Grand Sport Twins (GST) class.
The BMW Cycles Daytona entry for Floridian Mike Ciccoto, Texas native John Haner and Australian Warwick Nowland will also be an SST team to watch. Haner is a consistent top-10 finisher in AMA competition, while Nowland is a two-time World Endurance Champion and they will share the No. 83 BMW Motorcycles of Daytona BMW R1200 S with Ciccoto. The No. 83 is a number made famous at Daytona by Steve McLaughlin, the winner of the first AMA Superbike race in 1976 on a 102 hp BMW R 90 S.
Also competing in the SST class is Team Motorrad, whose riders are Ivan Messina, Frank Shockley (above) and Brad Phillips - all of whom are well known in vintage racing circles. However, the machine they will be racing is anything but vintage! The No. 55 R 1200 S has just had its 'shakedown' in a four-hour endurance event at Road Atlanta, finishing in fifth place with no mechanical problems whatsoever.
The starting grid will be determined by the order in which race entries were received, which means that Team Motorrad will be first on the grid! All the riders will get their first look at the Daytona International Speedway road course in a two-hour practice session on Friday evening while the 8 Hours At Daytona race itself is scheduled to start at 1pm (local time) on Saturday. Live timing and scoring data for all sessions will be available via the www.moto-st.com website.