Cycle News

VANCE & HINES HARLEY-DAVIDSON SERIES "I've been racing for a long time and have a lot of experience setting up bikes," said Rapp, who first began racing AMA Pro events 17 years ago. "I felt like the bike was pretty good. I don't change them much from race to race. I'm just really comfort- able on it and Joe [Houpt] builds probably the best bike out there for sure. If you look at it, it's just meticulously maintained and just perfect all the time. That helps a lot, giving me a lot of confidence. And I like this track. I've done well here in the past so I felt good." Eslick held off Carlson for sec- ond, even though he had very few laps on the Harley in practice. Eslick was trying to preserve his energy as much as possible in the Alabama summer heat since he had a pair of Daytona Sport- Bike races to run as well. The same could be said of Rapp, but Eslick is also very much in cham- pionship contention in DSB. Carlson seems to be surging at the right time, the former Su- permoto champion rider scoring his second straight podium. "It was a good race out there," said Carlson, who moved to with- in six points of the series lead. "I got off to a decent start, but was kind of at the back of the chain there. I just realized throughout these XR1200 races I always seem to get beat on the last two laps and getting fourth or fifth place. So I kind of put my head down and thought, 'I'm not going to keep losing to those guys.' So I was just kind of banzaiing some passes and, hey, they were stick- ing and that's what they've done to me every race so I'm going to keep doing it to them. It's all safe and fun racing, but we've got to get on the podium. I feel like we can be up in the championship again. I feel this year I'm finally not chasing O'Hara and those guys... I can run with them and beat them so I'm ecstatic." For Rapp, who in spite of the win is still down in seventh in the standings, the addition of the round at Indy [during MotoGP weekend] puts him back in con- tention to defend his title. "I do actually, I feel good," when asked if he thought he could get back in the champion- ship chase. "With them adding Indy and getting two more races there and getting some more points for us, anything is pos- sible. As you can see anyone can have a bad weekend. I've just got to be consistent and see if I can make up some points." CN Harley-Davidson Final 1. Steve Rapp 2. Danny Eslick 3. Ben Carlson 4. Tyler O'Hara 5. Shane Narbonne 6. Gage McAllister 7. Nick Hansen 8. Darren James 9. Josh Chisum 10. Eric Stump VOL. 51 ISSUE 25 JUNE 24, 2014 P61 NO SLEEP, NO PROBLEM Steve Rapp works as a pilot for his day job now and road racer as a part-time sideline gig. Sometimes that makes his schedule a little hectic, as it did so leading up to Barber. He came into Saturday's qualifying with no sleep for a day and a half. It didn't seem to bother him though. He scorched the hot Barber circuit with a new track record for the XR1200s with a time of 1:34.854, the only rider to dip into the 1:34 bracket. Fortu- nately Rapp said he got some good rest on Saturday night and was able to come back strong for the win on Sunday. "You always want to turn up at the race fresh and all this stuff," Rapp smiled. "I was working the last two days flying and I had two cross-country flights. I could sleep and caught the redeye back here. As of yesterday (Saturday) I hadn't slept in 36 hours. Yesterday was a long day with five sessions (between XR1200 and DSB) and the race. It was tough, but I feel a lot better today. I got some rest last night and that helped a lot." Sleep or no sleep, veteran Steve Rapp can take care of business.

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