Dany Eslick, Cédric Tangre's teammate in the TOBC team, will not participate in the Daytona 200!
Arrested Tuesday for assault on a representative of the public force then released on bail, he has just appeared before the committee of organizers who notified him of his ban from running. Image is very important in all American professional sports and this type of affair is very frowned upon.
Last minute: Shane Narbonne replaces Dany Eslick.
Dany excluded, Michelle Lindsay, like a good American team owner, keeps her smile even if we feel it a little frozen. After a few minutes of dismay, she sets out to find a replacement.
It’s 10:45 a.m. and the first practice session is at 12 p.m.…
We were able to observe what happened with the agreement not to reveal everything, unfortunately, but being in this privacy in these very difficult moments is a mark of trust that we must respect which will perhaps allow us to continue to be able to recount other equally intense moments.
At 11:15 a.m., the team of mechanics initially assigned to Dany Eslick are sitting in a corner of the truck's awning, staring into space. Suddenly, the order is given to prepare the machines and remove Dany's number 69 from one of the motorcycles. They work around for a few minutes, put on wheels, then nothing. Silence and shifty glances. And at 11:40 a.m., they get up and hastily paste the number 64 in place of 69.
Shane Narbonne will be the TOBC driver for the 200 Daytona 2016. We know Shane to be an old school American profile driver as he is pro in Flat Track and Speed. He is also a good Daytona specialist, which is important today.
Shane signed up here with his own team and that's what made the switch from his team to TOBC possible in such a short time because we can't imagine a team letting its driver go like that. This gives him visibility that he might not have had and it allows TOBC to be able to start with two drivers as planned.
We must report that Dany Eslick behaved like a true professional this morning despite his immense disappointment. Without passing any judgment on what he was able to do off the track, we recognize that he knows how to cope and was very gentlemanly with Shane during the “handover” of the bike.
Dany Eslick in civilian clothes, providing advice to Shane Narbonne
Shane finished the practice session 6th which bodes well for the future.
Daytona 200: Cédric Tangre 12th in the first free practice.
Cédric left the pit lane at midday to take his first laps on the TOBC team's Suzuki GSXR 600.
The objective of this 50-minute session was to discover the bike and in particular its basic settings which are so particular on this circuit and of course the discovery of the circuit and its famous banking.
He first makes 4 laps to check that everything is fine on the bike and if necessary change his position.
Everything is OK. He gives his first impressions « It's really special, it's not easy to stay at the top of the banking so close to the wall. I don't think I'm at full throttle, by the way. There's work ! ». You can see from his smile that he likes it.
Dany Eslick, who remained there despite the problems they are currently encountering, comes to see him and gives him some advice on his trajectory in the wide bend in front of the pit lane where the speed is maximum.
The French driver sets off again, the times are still far from the leaders but regularly drop by almost a second each lap. His mechanics are smiling, we are the first to receive live comments from Timmy, his chief mechanic «
Driving like that after 8 laps, it's really good » then he lets out a very American
« I am excited ». The pilot/mechanic relationship is going very well!
The session takes place according to the running table with runs of 6 flying laps. We take a look at the tower which displays the numbers of the 15 best times. Suddenly we see 30 displayed. Checked, there is no 30, it is indeed 230 which is displayed without the 2 because there are only two possible digits. Cédric is in the 15. Not bad !
The 50 minutes have passed.
Our Frenchie is 12th. The team is happy, Cédric gets off the bike, smiling but not that big. He entrusts us
« I'm having fun but I'm still looking for how to position myself on the banking both in the turns and in the stretches. I have to think about it for the second session ».
Scott Harvell, the team manager, does a quick debrief with Cédric about his trajectories on the ring. Scott is a former driver and has around ten participations at Daytona, his advice is good. In addition Dany Eslick joins the duo, the flow goes well between Cédric and him. Cédric will tell us “He knows what he’s talking about and he’s super cool”.
Then comes the technical debriefing with Timmy, 20 minutes devoted to a well-practiced question-and-answer game. The position where we talk about putting a “pad” on the tank to rest the chin because the neck is suffering: the rider must look askance but keep his body straight and glued to the motorcycle from feet to shoulders. Throttle response is OK. The suspension agreement is the subject of great attention because it cannot be good in the infield and on the banking. Cédric takes note of all the information but specifies that he prefers to leave without changes for the second session at 16:10 p.m. because he is not yet going fast enough to undermine the current settings. We feel the pilot thoughtful.
So 12th out of 50 in FP1, even if it's still quite far from first, bodes well.
2nd practice session: Cédric Tangre begins to pick up the pace.
13th in the second free practice session this afternoon under a bright Florida sun. You might think that it's no better than this morning but we learned just after this morning's practice session that a few top drivers had driven at midday without a transponder.
In first analysis we can say several things about the quality of this second session: – The pace of the favorites improved a lot this afternoon, – Cédric got two full seconds closer to the best time, – He does more laps, – He did not use new tires unlike the others, – We observed him in 3 different places and we could clearly see him testing trajectories, so he is still in the development phase. learning the track.
We have just met him and he gave us a few minutes before the general team briefing.
Spontaneously, he tells us
«I'm not disappointed because I'm still learning but I know that I could have improved at the end of the session because I wasn't able to get any traction in the last laps and that penalized me heavily ». Chase the pilot away and he returns immediately.
When we ask him what he needs to do to get closer to the best, he provides us with this analysis « This circuit is unlike anything I know. Banking of course is unique and absolutely requires the right draft (Editor's note; the right aspiration) but also the infield because most of the turns are double apex points and in addition they open up a little which, with the difficulty to take good marks, so that we always have the impression that we could have gone through it more quickly. The other particularity is the poor quality of the coating, the bumps are everywhere and there are numerous connections in all directions which create unevenness and destabilize the motorcycle. We encounter all this both when braking and accelerating and even at apexes. I have to work differently from what I know, I have to route according to these bumps and joints everywhere, we are far from the beautiful classic trajectory. Another point is the last turn of the infield which controls the entrance to the banking, I lose too much time there and it makes me lose “hours” on the first half of banking before the chicane. Tomorrow, that's all I need to improve ».
Listening to Cédric, we understand that Daytona cannot be tamed very easily and that we must forget certain things that have become reflexes and learn others that must become reflexes over the course of a race weekend.
This is the challenge for Cédric who is working with his technical team to configure the bike as he wishes and prepare the work plan for the first session tomorrow which will be the last free before riding for the two qualifying sessions . Busy Friday ahead.
