AMA Road Racing & Dunlop Schedule for Newly-Paved Daytona Tire Testing

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1989 AMA Superbike Champion Jamie James talks with one of his crew members while standing beside his #2 Vance and Hines Yamaha YZF-750 during practice for the AMA Superbike Series at the annual Coca Cola Super Cycle Classic at Road America in June of '94. James, who also won the '89 AMA 750 Supersport and '94 AMA 600 Supersport Championships, was one of the best tire-testers of the day in AMA Superbike competition. Always able to get the most out of his equipment, the Ragin Cajun was also one of the most likeable and approachable riders in the paddock to ever race in the premier AMA Superbike Series over the years.
Since retiring from full-time competition in the top-flight series, Jamie has been an instructor at various riding schools over the years (Kevin Schwantz' school for one) as well as putting together a Superstock-spec Yamaha R1 for former champ Scott Russell to ride in the AMA series in some 2008 select events. Jamie won his premier class championship while riding for the Yoshimura Suzuki team, and later in his career also rode some events on the H-D VR1000 for legendary owner/tuner Don Tilley.
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AMA Pro Road Racing and Dunlop Tire announced today that they have scheduled two tire tests at the World Center of Speed in Daytona for December of 2010 and January of 2011. Although the AMA Superbike Championship Series is no longer the premier race at Daytona International Speedway, the season-opening round is still considered a big-seller in the motorcycle sales business based on it's rich, if not controversial history in the series.

The AMA Daytona Sportbike Class now runs the Daytona 200 and the Superbike Class runs as the 'support' class over the course of the week's activities. Superbikes haven't been used in the 200 since the 2005 season, when tire-load factors became too dangerous in the premier class to run on the banking at DIS.

With the track repaving just wrapping up (Daytona hadn't been repaved in over 30 years and the repaving project started in July 2010), Dunlop and the AMA will be hitting the track in just a few short weeks to try and sort out the tire situation for the season-opening round scheduled in March 2011.
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RoadRacingWorld.com's David Swarts has this report on the scheduled tire tests at Daytona:

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?lnk=rss&article=42718
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Daytona International Speedway's official AMA Road Racing Daytona 200 and support event page is here if you are planning on making the trip in March:

http://www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com/Tickets-Events/Events/2011/Daytona-200-Week/Daytona-200.aspx
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