Finnerty takes ASRA Thunderbike win at NJMP
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It was a cold and windy Saturday at the newly patched New Jersey Motorsports Park. As we all know there was plenty of drainage issues and plenty of bumps but somehow NJMP has managed to make things worse with all new patches and bumps. We all wished it would be an improvement but to their demise things were only made worse which was shown by the club racers lap times. It seems as if fast times from the early 2010’s were race winning lap times in the lightweight classes here in 2021. And yet there was still a ton of excitement in the pits cause hey its April and we are just starting to go racing here in the north east. LWT racer had a few of their old school riders showing up at the ASRA / CCS first round at New Jersey such as Todd Alberico and myself. Todd on the #171 yamaha FZ and myself (Will Finnerty) piloting a new to me1997 Ducati 748 #61 with a fresh engine built by Joe at www.supermoto.com There was Ray Cappozuca #96 on board a lwt built sv650 and the wild man Dave “NITRO” White#784 on his new to him 749s.
Saturday the weather was only in the high 50s and the wind was not any pleasure to deal with and i could only get into the low 1:34s which is a terrible time considering what the moto america guys can do. But it was a good enough time to get me and my fresh built (non cracked heads and cylinders) Ducati on pole for Sundays ASRA Thunderbike race. Old school character and fun guy Mark Avery#4 was only 7 tenths behind me on his speedworks SV first gen. #73 Brad Fass with his brand new Aprillia RS660 to clean up 3rd in qualifying.
Sunday was a very wet and chilly morning warm up as i spent nearly 45 minutes on track very lonely on my slick shodded SV650 with only a handful of riders braving the elements. I took advantage of the time checking which areas of the track dried first. With it being an open practice i was able to take my time and study the track in detail where the new patches and bumps were. To my surprise most of the drainage issues at NJMP were solved meaning no more rivers on the track and only a few minor areas of concern. As the clock drew closer to race time the track was completely dry. The Grid was small at only 11 bikes ready to race i was ready on pole with my pirelli shod Ducati 748. When the green flag dropped it was game on and looking back was not an option. A drag race to turn one with a bunch of maniac club racers trying to get their win in the ASRA thunder bike race were no match for me and my supermoto.com built Ducati. I proceeded to extend my lead and eventually winning the race by 8.4 seconds over #73 Brad Fass and #3 Ivan Debord.
It was another great win for the LWT racer crew and my second year in a row at NJMP. To add to the weekend i also had 2 more wins and a 3rd place on my Ducati. 1 more win on my suzuki SV6560 as well. Club racing will always be one of my favorite things to do.
-Will Finnerty #61
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