RACE REPORT: American Super Bike Race 1 From Fontana

Josh Zemke(Left), Larry Pegram and Aaron Yates meet the media after

Saturday's AMA American Superbike race at Auto Club Speedway in

Fontana. Pegram held off Zemke for the win with Yates close behind in

third. Photo by Tony Solorzano/Mid-Valley News

So we've gotten through the first race of the day, which just finished a few minutes ago, and Larry Pegram, riding his Foremost Insurance/Pegream Racing Ducati, came from behind to overtake Jake "Earthquake" Zemke to win the 21-lap American Superbike feature race at Auto Club Speedway.

Pegram started on the front row alongside Tommy Hayden, John Hopkins and pole sitter Aaron Yates. However, Pegram started to make his moves midway through the race, moving from third up to first with about five laps to go, passing both Yates and Zemke on an outside pass.

After the race, all three came into the media center to talk about the weather conditions that forced the delay in the day's schedule and how the series has included the riders in the decision-making process with regards to the race delays. Larry Pegram made an interesting observation during his portion of the press conference, in mentioning a recent article that highlighted the Yoshimura racing team and the specialized staff the team employs, but still wondered how his, in essence, one-man operation still manages to beat them every race.

And so it begins...

Well, it's finally here. What most race fans have been waiting for. No, I don't mean it's time to talk endlessly about the "Martinsville Rectal Rockets," i.e., their infamous hot dogs. No, Good readers, the Formula One season has finally arrived for the 2009 season. So far, the F1 boys have gone through some big changes in the off-season, especially on the technical side. 

Right now, the series is opening the season in Melbourne, but already the Ferrari teams are really ticked off because they're starting in the middle of the starting grid while the new Virgin Racing group, complete with Sir Richard Branson, are sitting on the front row. Right now I'm watching the live coverage from SPEED and already you can see a lot of teams are not in the mood to talk with the pit reporters. It's so funny to see the formerly high and mighty teams like McClaren and Ferrari having to fall back to the also-rans. 

The race, as always, has live telemetry here from the Formula 1 flash site so us gearheads can enjoy it live. There's nothing like watching racing late at night from the other side of the world. 

LOCAL UPDATES:

Last weekend I was at the AMA Suzuki Superbike Challenge out at the Auto Club Speedway, and as it is every year, there were fireworks on and off the course. One of the big things happened Sunday afternoon after the Sportbike feature. During the post-race press conference, Jason DiSalvo, who finished third, was talking when the runner-up in the race, Jamie Hacking, leaned over and said something to race winner Danny Eslick, who swept the weekend races. In the middle of that quiet exchange, DiSalvo got heated and told Hacking to shut up while he was talking. 

Hacking was slapped with a suspension, a $4,000 fine and was put on probation for the rest of the year. However, Hacking issued a mea culpa before the end of the week which cleared him to run at Road Atlanta next week. Attack Suzuki, his race team, said they would pay the fine for him. But to be honest with you, Jamie got the short end of the stick on this whole thing. 

The day before, during a similar post-race press conference, Hacking and Eslick, who had also finished 1-2 in that race, had a similar conversation while Martin Cardenas the third-place finisher, was talking, unlike DiSalvo's tirade, there was no outburst that time. Granted, Hacking and DiSalvo have had something of a heated rivalry for some time now. , but side conversations like that occur all the time in press conferences like that. You have to wonder if DiSalvo went overboard in his indignation over Hacking trying to say something quietly to Eslick.

Here's the video from that incident. about 3:39 is when Disalvo gets upset but pay close attention to the response and you might catch Hacking dropping an F-Bomb on him.

I'll post this in YouTube first so I can embed it here.

UPDATE: Sorry for the delay on this video, but my electronics have conspired against me as of late. First, my keyboard's "P" key decided to die on me while my screen continued it's slow death spiral. Further complicating things was the desktop I've used to edit my videos now has no sound for some reason,  plus my temporary monitor fix, the DLP Projector, proved to me more troublesome than I anticipated.

So better late than never, here's the video of the Post-race meltdown that Jason DiSalvo had.