Öhlins Riders Sweep Daytona 200 Podium

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March 19th 2012

The Öhlins Daytona 200 Podium Sweep

Hendersonville, North Carolina: At Daytona International Speedway, in a dramatic, wheel-to-wheel, four-way battle for the win, following 200 miles of racing, the three motorcycles with Öhlins suspension components prevailed at the line, making it a one-two-three sweep of the podium for Öhlins in the 71^st running of the Daytona 200. On top of that, the weekend was Öhlins wins from Superbikes to V-Twins with twin shocks.

Kyle Wyman started off the weekend, and the season, for Öhlins and the AMA series, by earning the pole position for the Pro Vance & Hines XR1200 class, and then winning the opening XR1200 race on Friday.

Next up to win on Öhlins was Josh Hayes on his Monster Energy/Graves/Yamaha YZF-R1, carrying his 2011 championship ways into the 2012 season. Hayes’ dominating, 8-seconds-from-the-competition win, might have inspired Blake Young, who ran a competing brand of shock on Friday, when he finished second. He changed to Öhlins for Saturday and won the race on his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000, battling past what many thought was a faster bike than his, giving Öhlins a sweep of the two AMA Pro Superbike wins at Daytona.

In the Daytona 200, winner, Joey Pascarella, rode his team Project 1 Atlanta’s Yamaha YZF-R6, to the front of the drafting battle from the back-straight chicane to the checkered flag, taking the win over last year’s historic winner, Jason DiSalvo, by a mere 0.048 seconds. Behind DiSalvo’s Triumph Daytona 675, it was only another 0.064 seconds back to third and fourth place finishers, YES/Graves/Yamaha’s Cameron Beaubier and GEICO Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas, the last of whom was not sporting an Öhlins shock.  Behind them, Dane Westby, another Öhlins rider,  was a painful 44 seconds back on the M4 Broaster Chicken Suzuki, GSX-R600. He might have been in the final battle for the win, save for suffering a mechanical glitch during a pit stop where he lost well over 30 seconds.

Öhlins Racing AB, and Öhlins USA, congratulate these winners and top finishers, together with all competitors who step up to the difficult challenge of racing.

Öhlins USA distributes and services the world’s leading performance suspension components for automobiles, motorcycles, and ATVs. Öhlins develops its proprietary and trend-setting suspension components, steering dampers and oils, at the highest levels of racing from open-wheel car racing, to Moto GP, to off-road competition on two and four wheels. Öhlins USA also provides training for service centers and dealers.