irelli was all over Daytona’s road racing season opener; AMA Superstock, Superbike, Supersport, the Formula Xtreme Daytona 200. And the week before, Formula USA and CCS–Pirelli slicks, Pirelli’s new Supercorsa PRO D.O.T. and even a few Pirelli Rains were everywhere.
     Vincent Haskovec’s win was as cool as they come. Methodically, he worked his way to the lead in Thursday afternoon’s Superstock final last March on Daytona’s newly reconfigured Speedway road course. One by one he picked off the competition, and on the 10th lap passed race leader Aaron Yates and his Yoshimura Suzuki and never looked back. At the checkered it was Haskovec and his Team M4 EMGO Suzuki GSX-R1000–on Pirelli tires–by a few bike lengths. “I really started rolling after the first five laps,” Haskovec explains. “My tires were much better than theirs at the end. I think that made the biggest difference.”
     That Superstock win was no fluke. Nor was the performance of every other Pirelli rider at the Speedway. Rookie Danny Eslick finished 4th in his first-ever Daytona 200, running the same Pirelli front slick for the entire 200 miles! In fact, 40-percent of the Daytona 200 starting grid took the flag on Pirellis, with four riders finishing in the top 10, seven in the top 15. Want more? Geoff May on the Team M4 EMGO Suzuki GSX-R1000–on Pirellis–outpaced full-factory and factory-supported Superbike stars during qualifying. And the winning list goes on, right through every class at the Speedway to all of the DOT-class racers who took the track mounted on Pirelli’s latest SupercorsaPRO race radial.
     Don’t think tires make a difference? Try telling that to those guys in Daytona. Try telling that to Vincent Haskovec, the guy on the tallest box after the Superstock final. “I think we just proved we have the tires that can win at the highest levels of AMA racing,” Pirelli’s Bob Henderson, North American Road Racing Coordinator, said. “Pirelli has made a serious commitment to the American market,” he went on. “Carsten Merz and Thomas Thierolf from Milan, our top factory engineers and race technicians, were here all week long.”
     And you better believe that racing know-how filters straight down to the Pirellis for the street, the tires you can have ready and waiting for super-serious sport riders. The Diablo Supersports, the Diablo Strada Extended Mileage Sports, the Diablo Corsa Track-Day tires and those new Pirelli SupercorsaPRO Race tires, the ones so successful in all those DOT classes at Daytona, are all available through Parts Unlimited. That’s a serious commitment to the U.S. market, too. Call your rep for more info.