Again, sorry for being away guys, but, gotta pay the bills.
1st - Randy - Thanks for saving me a lot of key strokes. Your comments are spot on
2nd - Regarding this whole argument over displacement, get over it. If the only thing you want to look at is displacement, I'll line up any 600 off of the showroom floor and put it against any 1000+cc harley any day of the week. When comparing a twin to an inline 4, cc's are not apples to apples. And, in case no one noticed, a privateer Yamaha won the pole. If it turns out that the Ducati ends up with a performance advantage week in and week out, they will probably make an adjustment (add weight).
3rd - There was no conspiracy. Ducati acted within the rules that every other team must abide by. They were not granted any special favors - the followed the rules to the letter. The reference to the rule about bikes being service must go to the back of the grid is meaningless because EVERY bike was serviced during the red flag (they all got new tires).
4th - The reason for the long delay was based on a lack of communication for a situation that no one could have predicted. Contrary to popular belief, the race was not stopped simply because of Eslick's crash. In fact, they couldn't find anything wrong with the tire that Danny was on when he crashed. The race was stopped because multiple competitors had blistered front tires after the pit stops. Additionally, some of the racers were going to try to do a full race on 1 tire and Dunlop had no confidence that the one and only tire that was permitted at the start of the race could go the entire distance. So, the AMA, at the request of Dunlop, pulled the red flag to make sure all of the competitors changed the front tires. Here's where the communication breakdown took place. The communications to the teams was not clearly understood by all. They said mandatory red flag for a mandatory front tire change. Some of the teams simply took a spare front that they had on their rack and put the new tire on and put the warmer on it. What they failed to clearly communicate was that they couldn't just put a new front tire on, rather, they had to get a new front from Dunlop which was a different compound from what was used to start the race. So, the race would have restarted sooner, but, when they saw that some of the teams didn't put the new compound tire on, they had to wait for them to dismount the wheel, get it over to Dunlop, and put the new tire on. Dunlop then had to check every bike to ensure they all had the same compound tires on. With this being a spec tire series, all competitors have to buy tires. No freebies. Factory Yamaha pays the same as Joe Privateer. However, Dunlop did not charge any of the competitors for the new front tire. So, that all being said, they didn't have any test data that assured them that the tire would go more than 15 laps under those conditions, so, that is why the race was shortened
5th - DiSalvo did not pull off. He let the lead group go by as he felt something funky on the bike. After sitting there and watching a machine being torn apart and having a new motor thrown in and then going out on a tire that you have never been on, can't blame him for being a bit paranoid. Once the leaders got by, he rejoined them at the back of that pack. When you get on the banking at Daytona, it is easy to make up time when you get into the draft if you've got a decent machine under you. His lap time on that lap was only 1 sec slower than his fastest lap.
The racing after the red flag was flat-out awesome. The ending could have been tragic. Glad no one was seriously hurt (Westby has a broken thumb).
The Superbike races were great, also. I think it's going to be a great battle this year between the Suzukis and the Yamahas (well, ok, the 1 Yamaha). Would be nice to see the BMWs mixing it up in the front and i'm keeping my fingers crossed that Attack/Cycle World can get the sponsorship to run the rest of the series so EBoz can be thrown into the mix on the new Kawasaki.
Aside from just EBoz in superbike, hoping Attach/Cycle Wrold gets support so JD Beach can continue in Daytona Sportbike (kid did a fantastic job in his first DSB race) and also hoping that the Project 1 team can get the funding to do the rest of the series. Would suck to see Jake Zemke and that missle sitting on the sidelines.
The walleye are coming upstream and A plate full of them is far superior to this debate. :lol: 
