Locals dominate Dominican qualifying

By Frank Wood

The front row for this weekend’s Latin American Superbike Championship has been set with Dominican riders dominant. Nineteen-year-old budding star, Suzuki-mounted  Waldis Veras set fast time with a blistering lap of 1:16.992 on Friday, almost a full second clear of second place qualifier Expedito Peralta, who posted a 1:17.048.

Third place went to Emilio Pena, who clocked in at 1:17.660, a mere .007 secs. ahead of Kawasaki rider Fernando Amantini from Venezuela, who took the final front row position.

The Superbike lap record is 1:16.004 set by Aris Azcona in 2004.

Franklynn Dominguez on the Seamont/Holt Kawasaki was the last rider to post numbers in the 1:17 bracket with a 1:17.747 giving him fifth fastest. Dominguez, who competes in the Parts Canada Superbike Championship has also run all rounds of the 2010 D-R series and has a slight lead going into the final races this weekend.

“I’m really happy with this,” he confirmed. “I haven’t ridden this bike here very much and I’m sure I can go faster tomorrow and Sunday so yeah I’m really happy. We had some problems in qualifying. We overtightened the rear axle and it caused a little bit of trouble but it’s OK now.

Dominguez has a shot at both the National D-R championship, which he is leading, and the Latin American championship, which will be decide in the four-race format to follow.

“For me it’s just a lot of fun, I don’t feel any pressure to do well," he added. "If I win the Dominican championship it will be my fourth win there and I finished second in the Latin American championship in 2004 so I would like to win that one also. The level of competition is very high and I think it’s going to make some great racing.”

Positions six and seven are occupied by Cuban riders with Suzuki-mounted Nirio Rivero just .115 secs. faster than his Yamaha-mounted countryman Manuel Angles. Venezuelan Marco Martinez put his Suzuki into eighth place in front of the top Ameican rider Barret Long on a Ducati, with the top 10 rounded out by Canadian rider Jean Francois Cyr riding a self sponsored GSX-R750.

“This is actually a fun track to ride,” Cyr told Inside Motorcycles. “It takes a couple of laps to get used to it, there’s a couple of corners I’m struggling with, increasing radius very tight corners. Once I get the right lines for those corners, it’s going to be a lot better for lap times. Coming out of turn two is a little dangerous, we’re hard on the throttle coming out and if we get sideways in the corner we’re going to be kissing the wall. We just have to remember we’re down here to have some fun so there’s no need to go and crash here, so we’ll make sure nothing happens and we’ll bring it back in on two wheels.”

He had run the first timed session on Pirelli DOT tires and changed to slicks for the second session, improving by over a second and a half.

”We’ll be down in the 17s tomorrow,” he added.

Andrew Nelson had some unspecified problems with his BMW Motoradd/Hindle/Quinte Furniture S1000RR and did not appear in the first timed practice session. He did circulate in the second session on a motorcycle that was sounding and performing poorly. Nelson was well off competitive pace, his lap time a lowly 1:25.588, placing him 19th in a field of 20. At the end of the qualifying session Nelson was unsure if he would ride this weekend.

Nelson accepted a ride on the spare Kawasaki of Dominguez but sadly after less than three laps the green bike expired and Nelson was once again head scratching over his regular mount.

“Hopefully I can figure something out and put back the bike together that I did so well on in Canada this year and see if it’s going to be fast enough," Nelson said. "Right now I’m at a point where I just want to ride a bike. I want to go out on the track and have a good time and that’s it. The three laps I had out there was fun, I just went out and did a bunch of wheelies and checked out the scenery.”

Amateur and Pre Expert riders will qualify Saturday for their races on Sunday and the Superbike riders will race in the first two of four championship races Saturday afternoon.