Ducati News Today

Team Foremost Larry Pegram‘s Ducati 1198R set the pace during the first practice session today at Daytona for the opening round of the 2010 America Superbike Championship. Pegram lapped the circuit in a 1:40.280 just ahead of Josh Hayes on the factory Yamaha.

The pace was slower so far than last year (2.7 seconds off Mladin’s 2009 Superpole time) perhaps due to the temperature and track conditions.

“I did a 38.2 in the race, so the track is definitely off right now,” Pegram said after putting in his quick lap. “I’m not sure if it’s the temperature or the hard rain with the sand. There’s no grip out there. We had rain and 30-40 mph winds for two days so it just blows sand across everything. There’s no grip, but it might just be because it’s cold.”

Despite the retirement of Mat Mladin and the withdrawal of Honda and Kawasaki, Pegram still argues that there is a depth of talent in the field for him to contend with.

“If you look at the level of the guys we have out there, we have everyone back except for Mat [Mladin] and we’ve added [John] Hopkins and [Jake] Zemke so I think we’re going to have some good racing,” Pegram said.

link: Cycle News

American Superbike Daytona Practice 1
1. Larry Pegram (Ducati) 1:40.280
2. Josh Hayes (Yamaha) 1:40.441
3. Blake Young (Suzuki) 1:40.831
4. Ben Bostrom (Yamaha) 1:41.017
5. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki) 1:41.459
6. Aaron Yates (Suzuki) 1:41.978
7. Chris Ulrich (Suzuki) 1:42.141
8. John Hopkins (Suzuki) 1:42.156
9. Jake Zemke (Suzuki) 1:42.225
10. Brett McCormick (Suzuki) 1:42.403

Last year, Pegram made waves after his Ducati hit almost 200mph on the Daytona banking. American Superbikes will race twice at Daytona, both tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday before the Daytona 200 main event. The full Daytona event schedule is available.

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