Miller07

Miller Motorsport Park
Toole, Utah June 24, 2007

TENTH AND ELEVENTH FOR ELLISON AT MILLER MOTORSPORTS SUPERBIKE DOUBLEHEADER

Photo by Tom Riles Corona Extra Honda Racing’s James Ellison really showed his speed at this weekends AMA SuperBike event held just a few miles from the Great Salt Lake. Ellison posted tenth and eleventh place finishes in the doubleheader. His finishes were both marred by start line mishaps which held him back down the field. The weather could not have been more different from the last event with temperatures getting into the hundreds. The sweltering heat did not seem to slow James down in practice and qualifying. His previous testing at the track certainly helped in qualifying, with him netting his best starting grid position of the season, ninth!

The Team was confident for the first SuperBike race following excellent morning practice times by James. Come the green flag though, James’ start was poor leaving him a number of positions down from his grid position after the first lap. James said, “After the DNF at Road America with the burnt clutch I was very cautious getting off the line and a bunch of people came by me!” James put his head down however and started cutting through the field, working his was to eleventh by lap ten and tenth the next lap. He was gaining on the factory Yamaha of Jason DeSalvo by nearly a second a lap but just ran out of time to catch him by the checkered flag. James said, “I was getting more confident to push the front end as the race went on. I could see Desalvo and Yates and was gaining every lap -another couple of laps maybe!”

The crew put in a new type of clutch for race two to give James confidence at the start. At the drop of the green flag Ellison again had difficulty getting off the line. “The clutch worked differently from the other one and I just needed more practice,” said Ellison. He was fourteenth after lap one, working up another place by lap two. The race was stopped on lap four when race leader Matt Mladin crashed out. Mladin stayed down in the impact zone until the red flag came out. He then got up and ran back to his pit followed shortly after by his bike. In an obvious-to-all and blatant display of favoritism to the multi-time Superbike champion, the restart was delayed until his bike was ready to race. The special treatment caused great disgust throughout the paddock even as far as officials working the event. As one said, “How long does it take to write out new grid positions from the last lap chart? Certainly not half an hour!”

On the restart James again had clutch issues and was deemed to have jumped the start. He was given a pit ride-through penalty which dropped him to second to last. He then rode like a man possessed, putting in lap times a second faster than his qualifying time and that would have put him in the top four. He made up nine positions to finish eleventh.

Ellison is currently eleventh in the SuperBike Championship points order. The Speed Channel rear-facing view camera was once again on James’ bike for the weekend.

Corona Extra Honda Racing is proud to be partnering with industry-leaders: Parts Unlimited, Cycle Gear, Ti Force, Joe Rocket, Castrol, Dunlop, Sidi, Hotbodies, GPR, Motion Pro, K&L, HRC, Ohlins, VP Racing, Vortex, CR&A, Adran, DynoJet, RK, Brembo, Marchesini, Galfer, JETT Tuning, EFI Technology, Performance Solutions, EBSCO Media, MTS.

Images by Nelson & Riles