Wait Begins Formula USA Title Defense.

Californian Matt Wait had little trouble in the opening round of the Formula USA SportBike Series Sunday at Daytona International Speedway. Wait pulled away to a convincing 18-second victory in the class on his KneeDraggers.com Yamaha R6. New Englanders Jeff Wood and Scott Greenwood rounded out the top three finishers on a pair of Suzukis. The hard luck rider of the day was Sebastian, Florida's Mike Ciccotto.

Ciccotto battled Wood for second, but as the duo sped down the DIS trioval, Ciccotto's Buell sputtered and lost power as he ran out of fuel. He coasted across the finish line in fourth.

Text provided by

Jim Winters of Hal's Racing.

Matt Wait showed off the number one plate proudly, speeding to decisive wins aboard his Kneedraggers.com Yamaha R-6 in both the premier Formula USA Sportbike and Formula USA Superbike races on a day of rapidly changing weather at Daytona International Speedway.

Prior to the Sportbike race, the Californian waited until the last minute to make a tire choice on the drying 3.56 mile speedway. Wait, who'd earned the number one plate by winning the inaugural F-USA Grand National Championship in 2002, had an early battle with Hal's H-D/Buell's Mike Ciccotto in the Sportbike final before beginning to clear out on the sixth of 18 laps. With no one in his path, and the track almost completely dried out after early afternoon showers, Wait raced to a 13.444 second victory, completing the 64.08 mile race in 17 minutes, 27.241 seconds at an average speed of 110.141 mph.

"I didn't know how this race was going to start out because of the weather, but we prevailed and everything came out all right," Wait said. "I basically set my own pace and rode a calm race. I had a little challenge at the beginning and then just put my head down and pulled away. We decided about a minute before the race that DOT's (tires) would be the way to go since the track was drying out."

Ciccotto would fall back to fourth place, passed towards the end of the race by Jeff Wood and Scott Greenwood, both on Suzukis sponsored by Bettencourts and Penguin Racing School.

Wood diced with Ciccotto before taking the spot for good on the 15th lap, with Greenwood grabbing the final podium spot when Ciccotto slowed on the final lap, motoring past the checkered flag on the apron.

"I didn't want to take any chances and throw it on the ground," Wood said. "We got third row on the grid, so we just did the best we could, but there was no catching Matt Wait today. He was on the gas."

Wait didn't carry the number one plate in the Superbike race: For that one he wore number '125.' Regardless of the number, he was first on the track, clearing out more easily than he had in the earlier Sportbike race and winning more decisively.

The margin of victory for the nine lap, 32.04 mile race was 18.275 seconds.

The highly entertaining battle for second, third, and fourth went to the line with Arclight Suzuki's Scott Harwell just beating Craig Connell, the Australian aboard the Annandale Racing Honda CBR-600RR. Jeff Wood was fourth on the Suzuki.

Thanks
Jim Winter

Hello to all,

I am not used to starting out quite like this, but--boy, did we have a poor showing this Daytona, I do not know how else to put it. I must also say it was not through a lack of effort as I believe we had an excellent crew that put forth 11 0%, but it was just not meant to be. We all worked from sun up to sun down, we had Ed our suspension guru along which was a bonus for us as our Yamaha project needed everything he could throw at it. Scott went down a week early to get everything situated and worked very, very hard every day in prepping bikes. Jeff stayed focused all weekend in working with everyone to put it all together and get on the podium.

I truely believe we have assembled a championship calibur team, with sponsors, rider and support crew. Unfortunately, no matter what you feel you have in hand, Daytona can throw it right out the window.

Our A bike Buell had a major mechanical failure in Friday morning practice which took that bike out of contention. It is very unfortunate as I truely believe it would have been on the box and quite possibly was a bike that Jeff could win on. That being said, we focused more on the Yamaha to bring it up to the speed we needed. That bike threw us a few curve balls, but every time we were able to work through them and continued to develope it into faster bike.

It rained for every practice, qualifing and eventually the race. This year we have signed a deal with Michelin, as Jeff feels they have the best rains and slicks. Last year we had Pirrelli's, but always went back to the Michelins in the rain and it really worked for us.

In qualifing, the Yamaha threw another curve ball at us and we ended up qualifing our back-up Buell which was really our C bike. This bike was highly developed for the Lightning Series, but well under horsepowered for todays Thunderbike Series. We used up valuable time early in the session with the Yamaha and the rain became harder later in the session with the Buell. We ended up on the 4th row, but with a large grid and a good start we knew we could work our way up.

The race brought us more rain, but we had the set-up for it as we dealt with it all week! Jeff quickly moved up to 7th and I believe could have continued working his way up, but the safety wire on the oil filter broke and allowed the filter to back off and that was not good! Quickly identifing the problem, Jeff pulled off. By this time it was too late though and our chances of a 3rd win in a row were gone!

As I said before, being in the pits all weekend, working with these guys, we could not have had a better assembled team and to come home empty handed is a dissappointment. I wish I could have turned things around, but we never did catch a break and that is just another part of racing. I do not like admitting to it and you can all bet a few coins that we will be on the top of our game for the next one.

Everyone came home safe and sound, the bikes are all in one piece and will be ready for our next round and that is the one thing that really matters when we look back at this weekend. Many thanks to all who help us do what we do, as this is truely a team effort when you get to this level and I know we have the best TEAM out there!

Thank you,
John E. Dahmer
Hoban's Cycle/Hoban Brothers Racing
2002 National Thunderbike Champions
10629 Hwy 42, Osman, WI. 53063
P - (920) 726-4990,
F - (920) 726-4991,
www.hobanbrothers.com