(Left to Right) Jake Holden, Danny Eslick and Eric Stump took the top-three spots at the first ever AMA Pro XR1200 Racing series.
Today history was made when Danny Eslick won the first ever AMA Pro Vance & Hines XR1200 Series motorcycle race at the Suzuki SuperBike Doubleheader at Road America.
Eslick, riding the carefully controlled specification
Harley-Davidson XR1200 entered by the Richie Morris Racing/Bruce Rossmeyer Daytona Racing Partnership, took the win after a race long duel with teammate Jake Holden riding the second GEICO Powersports Lucas Oil Revolution Performance XR1200. Taking third was young AMA Pro SuperSport regular Eric Stump who was riding the Jones Brothers XR1200.
Eslick won the restarted 10 lap race after leading six of the 10 laps but there were many more lead changes as he and Holden swapped the top position what seemed to be at every corner. Third place finisher Eric Stump had his own private battle with another pair of riders just slightly back from the front two.
Fighting against the odds, Stump took the fight to Travis and Kyle Wyman, who were riding for Harv's Harley-Davidson Racing and RMR Bruce Rossmeyer Daytona Racing respectively. The three riders rode wheel to wheel the entire race with a surprised and delighted Stump taking the final step on the historic podium.
The race got off to an exciting start but when John Ashmead on his Brady Schwemmer Racing XR1200 suffered a mechanical problem entering turn five, the race was red flagged for track cleanup. Upon the restart, James Gang Hoban Brothers Racing rider Paul James had an unfortunate coming together with another rider moments after the start and James took a pretty comprehensive fall on the front straight, causing the race to once again be red flagged in the interests of safety. After full agreement from the riders and entrants, it was decided to conclude the race later in the day, thus enabling the Schwemmer Racing crew to enact repairs to their XR1200 and rejoin the race, albeit from the back.
At the restart, Eslick and Holden took up where they had left off and put on a show that had the fans buzzing. The classic sounds of the Wisconsin built Harley-Davidson twins reverberated off the tall tree-lined straights at the majestic Road America race course. Eslick, Holden and Stump were all delighted with the performance of the new AMA Pro Road Racing category and they all looked forward to the next race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course where to a man, they felt the racing would be even better than what we saw here today.
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Courtesy of Harley-Davidson
Eslick, the reigning AMA Daytona Sportbike champion and current points leader, dominated the time sheets all weekend, but had his hands full during the back-and-forth 10-lap race, nipping Holden at the line to take a narrow 0.055-second margin of victory with a last lap drafting pass at the finish line.
“It’s a super fun bike to ride, and I had a really fun race with Jake,” Eslick said. “He was struggling in a few spots to get it
After a four-hour delay that was caused by two separate red flag incidents, Danny Eslick took the win in the first ever Vance & Hines XR1200 event.
turned and on the last lap he missed a shift and hit the limiter. That killed his drive and kinda handed me the win. But I’d been practicing drafting him to the line on a few laps so I think I had it figured out anyway.”
The battle for the third step on the podium was equally thrilling, with brothers Kyle (Bruce Rossmeyer’s Daytona Racing /RMR) and Travis Wyman (Harv’s Harley-Davidson Racing) battling with Jones Brothers Racing’s Eric Stump. The trio put on an impressive battle, with Stump eventually prevailing over Kyle Wyman by a mere 0.025-second gap. Travis Wyman finished fifth, followed by Shawn Conrad (WFOracingonline.com/Spyke’s Harley-Davidson), Joseph Rozynski (Bruce Rossmeyer’s Daytona Racing/RMR), Aaron Frank (HOG Magazine/Vance & Hines), and John Ashmead (Brady-Schwemmer Racing).
Sunday’s race finished late in the afternoon after a four-hour delay caused by two separate red flag incidents, the first of which was caused by a loose oil filter on Kyle Wyman’s bike that resulted in he and another rider crashing in Turn five on the third lap of the race. During the restart, James Gang/Hoban Brothers Racing rider Paul James got tangled with another bike just past the start/finish line, causing a second red flag. James returned to the track after a medical check, but was unable to join the final restart.
The Vance & Hines XR1200 series returns to action July 18-19 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, OH.
