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Daytona 200 By Honda Post-Race Quotes
Daytona 200 By Honda Post-Race Quotes
Media Center interview Josh Hayes, No. 1 Honda “This is huge. This is a great way to start the season. It seems that I don¹t necessarily always start the seasons off so strong. It feels good. “Last year I thought I came here with the package I needed to win, but the opportunity to win got taken away from us with the fuel problems. I’m starting off this year better than I did last year, and I was able to win the championship. I know I have some stiff competition this year, so it¹s good to get it kicked off this way. I’m going to do my very best to keep it that way. Last time for Formula Xtreme in the Daytona 200 By Honda “It’s great for me, having won the (Xtreme) championship two years in a row, to finally be able to get this win. This was my last chance to get it (on a Formula Xtreme bike). Hopefully, we’ll all be on Superbikes next year and get to do it again. “The biggest thing was the race went exactly to plan. I had a couple of exciting moments in traffic, and I think I went off the track twice, but I can¹t blame anybody but myself I put myself in a couple of bad spots. But I knew I had a little time to work with, so it was OK to stand up and get back going again.
Chaz Davies, No. 57 Kawasaki “My first stint wasn’t very good at all. We had something wrong with the rear of the bike and I had a lot of vibration. I was really trying to nurse things around the back end. I feared the worst, it was getting worse and worse every lap. I saw Steve come in, and I decided to come in the next lap, because I didn’t want to stop too early because of the fuel. So I stopped the lap after Steve did, and then, luckily, everything was fine and the bike was running how we practiced. Then, I started feeling comfortable and I put my head down. I could see Steve in front and I could see Neil (Hodgson) just in front of him. Josh was gone by that point. I was on the edge of a podium, so I kept my head down. I had a couple of dicey moments with traffic and ran off the track a couple of times, once or twice in the chicane. That’s scary, because you know how much it rained last night. I just tried to keep it clean the last 15 laps. I wasn’t sure if my pit board read 2.2 or 22 seconds, so I just kept going and going, because I was really comfortable.” On the windy conditions “The wind wasn’t too bad, but there was a lot of trash flying around, especially coming into turn one. One time, I had a little bit of a slip going into one with the front, and I thought I was trash. It affected us, but you do 69 laps, you seem to adjust to it.”
Steve Rapp, No. 15 Kawasaki “To win this race, everything has to go right. Last year, everything went perfect for us. It seemed like there were no other bikes on the track, and my tires were working perfect. That’s what it takes to win. This week, we didn’t have it. I made a lot of mistakes myself and put the crew behind a little back. It was one of those races were I didn’t get the traffic breaks really good, and everyone else was riding really good. You have to ride perfect and you have to get the good breaks in traffic, and get really good pit stops. We had half of it, just not all of it. I thought I was riding pretty good. When I came into the pits for my second stop, Chaz was already in the pits, so I had to go back out and do another lap, and I came back in again. When you have things like that happen, you’re definitely not going to win. At that point, you¹re just hoping for a podium. Late in the race, it was P-8 with about eight laps to go, at that point a big gap so I put it on cruise control and made sure we got at least on the podium. I knew after having such a great race last year that I had no place to go but down, so I wanted to at least put it on the podium.” Daytona 200 By Honda Quotes Television Interviews Winner Josh Hayes, No. 1 Honda “I think Jake and I both showed this morning in the warmup that with the wind, we both had a really good pace. Jake and I felt like we were working together. Everything was going real smooth. My race just couldn’t have gone better. I had the best team. I had the best crew. I had the best motorcycle. I definitely had the best tires. Man, on the 23rd-24th laps of my stints I was able to put down some good times to try to drive the nail in the coffin on those guys. Man, to have two No. 1 plates it’s about time we finally got one of these. I’m pretty stoked about it. Was Hodgson closing in late in the race? “I made a couple mistakes. I knew I had a small gap on him. I was just trying to keep the pressure on, be smart through traffic and be aggressive, too. The aggressive caught up with me a couple of times. I ended off the track once or twice. I knew I had a little bit of a gap, a little time to work with, but it all worked out. At the end of the race we had a nice, big cushion and the machine was working wonderful. My CBR600RR, man, it’s the best motorcycle on the track and it brought me home.” “It’s still just another race for me. I think we’re all really proud guys, and we want to win every race. It was a great race win. It’s a lot of work because it’s two hours. Two hours of hard work, it’s great to finally get that payoff and I can’t wait to get that big trophy and put the name in the record books, too. That’s not too bad, either.”
Chaz Davies, No. 57 Attack Kawasaki “I haven’t yet to speak with my mechanic to understand what went on there. Sure we’ll find that. To come away with second, I cannot complain. I’m really really happy. “It’s a good way to start. You always want to come out, from what I’ve learned anyway, you always want to come out here with points and get something on the board to get rolling. We’ve done that. We’ve done what we wanted to do really. I would’ve been very disappointed if I didn’t get a podium this weekend. During the first stint, I didn’t think that a podium was possible, anyway I sort of dug in on the second stint, the bike felt better, we had less problems on the second stint and then it’ll all started coming. I could see people getting bigger and bigger in my sight and from then on it was good.”
Larry Pegram, No. 72 Pegram Racing Ducati
“We had some problems of the first deal, but luckily here comes the pace car. That kind of helped us and then the computer guy’s were thinking maybe we could get in some stops. So we came in, I don’t know when that pace car came out, but I was kind of motioning to my guys ‘Hey can we go with one stop?’, but on the last one when we came in it was running out, so I’m glad that we did that or we wouldn’t have made it. The bike was good. We persevered. This was a really tough week with a brand new bike, but to come out here and finish fourth, I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
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