By Stephen W Clark
Nineteen year old JD Beach is no stranger to motorcycle racing but at the recent AMA test JD headed out on the track riding a 1000cc Superbike for the first time. Joined by the best and most experienced racers in the US JD spent two days lapping Miller and getting up to speed on the most powerful bike he has ever ridden. JD riding the Attack Cycle World Kawasaki is beginning of another chapter in an already impressive story of this team.
The Cycle World team originally formed mid-way through last season with a partnership between several major players in the motorcycle industry. Cycle World Magazine were the driving force behind the project and brought together a Yoshimura GSXR-1000 Suzuki with Richard Stanboli from Attack Performance as crew chief and four time AMA National Champion Eric Bostrom came out of retirement to ride the bike at the last four rounds of the 2010 AMA American Superbike championship. The bike was built using over the counter parts including a Leo Vince Corsa exhaust system and proved to be competitive, Eric qualified the bike on the front row in VIR and finished seventh at both VIR and Laguna Seca. It was remarkable that this newly formed team on a tight budget and no special parts was so competitive in the highest level of National competition.
Following the four AMA races in 2010 the team went into the off-season satisfied with their results. But the project resurrected again when Mathew Miles at Cycle World decided to have the team to race again at Daytona, Cycle World had done a Daytona project in the nineties and wanted to do it again. It was decided to bring the same team from 2010 back together but this time use the brand new Kawasaki ZX-10R. Eric Bostrom would again pilot the superbike and promising young rider JD Beach was brought into to ride a ZX-6R.
Stanboli and his team built two ZX-10R’s and four ZX-6R’s and conducted a series of tests at Chuckwalla, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Buttonwillow and Daytona to get the new bike up to speed. With limited time and an brand new bike to set-up and develop parts for the team worked around the clock in the weeks leading up to Daytona.
Unfortunately Eric Bostrom’s Daytona experience was plagued with problems and bad luck. In the first Superbike race Eric was hit by another rider and crashed, the second Superbike race was better but with a less than ideal set-up Eric had to settle for an 8th place finish. The premier race of the event the Daytona 200 once again luck was not on Eric or the teams side as Eric blew a motor on the second lap. In spite of Eric’s disappointing results the team still experienced success at Daytona with JD Beach. JD qualified his ZX-6R 4th for his first ever Daytona 200 and during the race was right in the thick of the lead group action. JD led the race for a few laps and narrowly missed out on podium, finishing 4th in one of the closest AMA race finishes in many years.
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JD Beach is one of the most promising young riders in the US at the moment and although only 19 JD already has a very impressive resume. JD began racing dirt track when he was 3 years old and had a successful dirt track career that netted him many wins at National level, in 2007 JD was accepted into the Red Bull Rookies Cup and in 2008 won the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup. In 2008 JD returned to the US and finished 2nd in the AMA Supersport Championship and forth in the AMA Pro Flat Track Singles Championship. In 2009 JD raced the AMA Supersport Championship again this time winning the East Championship. Replacing four-time AMA National Champion and World Superbike race winner Eric Bostrom, JD has big shoes to fill. Crew chief Rich Stanboli told us that he had been impressed with JD’s maturity and how he was consistently fast so with Eric gone it made sense to put JD on the Superbike.
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During the test JD’s laptimes gradually improved and in one session it appeared that Josh Hayes was mentoring the young rider. JD ended the Miller test with just two seconds off the fastest lap set by Josh Hayes with the 12th quickest time of 1:52.386. On the long Miller front straight the Kawasaki ZX-10R posted a trap speed of 187.73 mph the fastest speed of the test. It was an impressive performance considering it was JD’s first time on a Superbike and the first time at Miller since 2007. The team is hoping to have JD race the ZX-10R superbike for the first time at Round 2 of the AMA championship at Infineon.
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