This past weekend at Daytona saw the final event in the 2008 Moto ST series, and if you follow the CMG News you’ll probably have seen this little tidbit. In that story we reported that two of Canada’s fastest ladies, Marie-Josée Boucher and Genevieve Lesieur, were entering their first race at Daytona and their first Moto ST event. (Melissa Paris is an American team member.)
The results were, to say the least, a PITA. The bike, a Suzuki SV1000S owned and prepared by Vallely Racing (a good, professional team; among others Canadian aces Frank Trombino and Matt McBride have had success with them) and sponsored by Jim Walker Cycle World of Daytona, simply wasn’t co-operating.
Marie-Josée told us it started "burping" during her first stint on the bike, some sort of fueling or electrical problem, and that was about that. Despite massive efforts by the team, including swapping most of the fuel and electrical bits off a spare machine, nothing fixed it.
Mary-Jo said, "I must have done 20 laps and pulled in 10 times! It was very frustrating [especially because] our times were okay … Melissa was up I think as high as fourth in the first session. Finally I stopped for good half an hour before the finish because it was just too dangerous." The team still finished 25th out of 31 entries.
The girls’ lap times were fast enough for a potential top 10 finish, so it has to be classed as a racing "oh well". Still, Mary-Jo insisted they all had a great time. "Mr. & Mrs. Vallely were great, a good team, and racing at Daytona was a dream come true. So big, so fast!
"Maybe we can do something for next year."
Typical racer, she is. Except for being pleasant and polite all the time …
The race was won for the second year in a row by the Roadracingworld.com Suzuki SV1000S, piloted by Martin Cardenas, Chris Ulrich, and Cory West. They swapped the lead with the Aprilia USA-1/Lloyd Bros Motorsports entry of Ty Howard, Michael Himmelsbach and Bryan West until the Aprilia suffered mechanical problems, but the team salvaged a 10th to take the overall series title for the second year.
