Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Jennings belongs to Picotte
From cdnsuperbike.com
JENNINGS, FL -- The first official Parts Canada Superbike Championship pre-season test session at Jennings GP in North Florida belonged to Pascal Picotte.
After setting the fastest overall time on Monday afternoon, and the top 600 and Superbike times this morning, the Picotte Performance Yamaha rider was once again on fire during the last leg of the two-day test. Mid-afternoon, Picotte turned a lap a mere 0.4 seconds off the outright track lap record. The Dunlop slick equipped Picotte set the overall fastest lap of one minute 15.959 seconds, as timed by the official series Yamaha dBcom Timing System, halfway through this afternoon's session on his brand new 2005 Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike.
The official Jennings GP lap record, a 1:15.5, was set in January by Robert Jensen on a Michelin shod Yamaha. With a busy two days of chassis set up for four Yamahas, Picotte wasn't inclined to h! unt for the Jennings outright marker, even though he got oh-so-close.
The fastest Hindle 600 Sport Bike time of the afternoon (1:16.704) also went to Picotte's R6. The reigning quadruple National Champ was sporting his new "race replica" leathers that will be available - with the Picotte Jester on the back - through both American Yamaha and Yamaha Canada.
Second fastest this afternoon was DXS Diablo Suzuki rider Francis Martin, knocking more than a second off his best time from this morning with a 1:16.764 on the brand-new GSX-R1000. Coming off a rough outing at Daytona, Martin looked re-energized following a productive two days aboard the third generation, new for 2005 "Gixxer." Martin rode for Suzuki Canada on the Parts Canada tour from 2001 through 2003.
Popular un-retired American veteran Tom Kipp was able to work out some of the "chatter" issues with the immaculate Canadian Kawasaki ZX-10R to end the day with the third fastest Superbike! time of 1:17.586.
Diablo rider Steve Crevier rode his st! reet sto ck Honda CBR1000RR to the fourth quickest time of 1:18.202. This was slightly slower than the 1:18.200 set by the six-time Canadian Superbike champion on his CBR600RR - the same bike he will race at the AMA round at Barber Motorsport Park this weekend. Crevier had both AMA Xtreme spec and Supersport CBR600RRs at his disposal during the Jennings sessions.
Canadian Kawasaki's Matt McBride dropped his Superbike time to a 1:20.187 from this morning's 1:20.240 on the ZX-10R, but didn't better his 600 Sport Bike time from the morning session.
It was another scorcher of a day at Jennings, with outside temperature in the low 80's (ºF) and a track temperature again hovering around the 118ºF (48ºC) mark.
