AMA Road Racing April 3 - 5, 2009 | Braselton, GA Results

Graves Motorsports racer Josh Herrin came within a half second of posting another Yamaha win in the newly formed AMA Daytona SportBike class at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Ga. on Sunday, April 5. The second-place podium finish represented another second place spot on the podium for the 18-year-old Yamaha racer in the new class, which pits four-cylinder middleweight sportbikes like the R6 against large-displacement V-twins. Just 16 and in his first year of pro racing, Graves teammate Tommy Aquino was also fast, running as high as third in Sunday’s race before crashing – fortunately without injury – in the closing laps. Herrin’s podium finish positions him solidly third in the standings behind race winner Danny Eslick and Jamie Hacking, while Aquino currently lies in 12th.

Superbike Results: Race 2  1 Mat Mladin     2 Blake Young     3 Geoff May     4 Josh Hayes - YAM     5 Aaron Yates     6 Tommy Hayden     7 Taylor Knapp     8 Ben Bostrom - YAM     9 Jake Holden     10 Larry Pegram

Standings After Round 3 of 12  1  Mat Mladin 157   2  Tommy Hayden 112   3  Geoff May 92   4  Blake Young 89   5  Josh Hayes - YAM 77   6  Ben Bostrom - YAM 71   7  Larry Pegram 64   8  Aaron Yates 62   9  David Anthony 48   10  Taylor Knapp 44

Superbike Results: Race 1  1 Mat Mladin     2 Tommy Hayden     3 Geoff May     4 Blake Young     5 Josh Hayes - YAM     6 Aaron Yates     7 Larry Pegram     8 Ben Bostrom - YAM     9 David Anthony     10 Jake Holden

Sportbike... Sunday’s near win for Herrin came in the second race of a doubleheader weekend for the Daytona SportBikes. After Saturday’s Race 1, in which Herrin finished sixth and Aquino finished eighth, both riders were perfectly attuned to the Road Atlanta circuit – and to their R6s. The young stars charged hard at the drop of the green flag, running with the front-runners throughout the 20-lap event. The race win literally came down to a last-lap shootout between Herrin and Eslick, the latter aboard a bike with nearly twice the engine displacement as the Yamaha. With the edge in corner speed and braking, Herrin took it to the limit, even touching fairings with Eslick in a terrific last-lap surge. At the checkered flag the blue-and-white R6 was just 0.483 sec. behind – the closest to a win for Herrin since finishing second to Yamaha’s Ben Bostrom in the Daytona 200.

“The R6 was working great!” Herrin grinned later. “The Graves Yamaha crew has been working hard all weekend and I couldn't ask for anything better." Yamaha road racing team manager Tom Halverson added, “When you’re racing against a bike with almost double the engine capacity it’s really difficult, but team owner Chuck Graves is seeing some good progress, both with the R6 and with a couple of younger riders. Josh Herrin has to step into the role as the lead rider, and it’s pretty heavy for someone to do that without a role model. It is a lot of pressure for a kid that age, but he is showing he has the maturity and the talent to take on the task. And he is right there in the championship.”

Daytona Sportbike Results: Race 2  1 Danny Eslick     2 Josh Herrin - YAM     3 Chris Peris     4 Taylor Knapp     5 Jamie Hacking     6 Chaz Davies     7 Jason DiSalvo     8 Michael Barnes     9 Steve Rapp - YAM     10 Michael Beck - YAM

Standing after round 3 of 12  1  Danny Eslick 109   2  Jamie Hacking 99   3  Josh Herrin - YAM 96   4  Martin Cardenas 81   5  Jason DiSalvo 77   6  Chaz Davies 72   7  Jake Zemke 60   8  Chris Peris 53   9  Steve Rapp - YAM 45   10  Leandro Mercado 39

Daytona Sportbike Results: Race 1  1 Martin Cardenas     2 Roger Lee Hayden     3 Danny Eslick     4 Jake Zemke     5 Chaz Davies     6 Josh Herrin - YAM     7 Jamie Hacking     8 Tommy Aquino - YAM     9 Chris Peris     10 Taylor Knapp

Supersport Results  1 Leandro Mercado     2 Joshua Day - YAM     3 Joey Pascarella - YAM     4 Armando Ferrer     5 Kris Turner     6 Kyle Wyman - YAM     7 Ryan Clay - YAM     8 Huntley Nash - YAM     9 Derek Wagnon     10 Reese Wacker