Fontana07

California Speedway
Fontana, California April 27-29

Photo by Brian J. Nelson ELLISON TWELFTH IN SECOND CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY SUPERBIKE DOUBLEHEADER

Corona Extra Honda Racing SuperBike pilot James Ellison suffered an attack of electronic gremlins in race one but overcame the little devils in race two to finish twelfth at this weekend’s SuperBike double header at California Speedway in Fontana, CA. The second race result was more impressive considering his CBR1000RR SuperBike would not rev near to redline!

James was not too happy with his qualifying position of sixteenth. He said, “I aggravated an old injury on my left arm last week at Barber. It’s making rapid transitions from side to side hard and I’m definitely losing some time. Having the two races back to back has made it hard to work on it this week. I will just have to tough it out!”

Under warm, sunny classic California skies, James got a great start in race one and was up to twelfth by the end of lap one. He worked his way up to eleventh by lap eight and was well in touch with the pack ahead when a mysterious misfire set in on his engine. Within a lap it got so bad that James was forced to retire. He said: “It was strange, the bike started feeling like it was hitting the rev limiter. As I went on the rev limit got lower and lower. I’m bummed because I was up with the pack and could see a bunch of guys to pass!”

The crew changed all the electronics on the bike as well as all the fuel injection components before race two as no one component seemed to be the culprit. James started the race thinking the problem had been solved but soon after the start it reappeared. James had made a good start and was up to thirteenth position by lap two. He lost positions as the problem manifested itself more. Luckily it did not seem the get worse so James rode around the problem as best he could. “I just short-shifted everywhere and ran the race not using the top three thousand revs,” James said afterwards. His persistence paid off as riders ahead dropped out or crashed. By the end of the race he had picked up three positions to finish twelfth. Ellison is currently eleventh in the SuperBike Championship points order.

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