PRESS ROOM
Touring Sport Ducati Takes 1st Place at the WERA Cycle Jam 6-Hour Endurance
Braselton, GA (June 29, 2007) – Touring Sport Ducati took an impressive win in the Lightweight Superbike
class at the WERA 6-hour Endurance at Road Atlanta. This event was Round #4 of WERA’s 2007
National Endurance series and part of the Cycle Jam weekend which attracted entrants from all over the
United States and Canada. The South Carolina based endurance team comprised of Frank Shockley, Pete
Friedland and Brad Phillips, lead for a total of 125 of 133 laps completed on the 2.25-mile road course.
Since the team began campaigning their Ducati 1000DS race bikes late last year, their record is now 2-for-
2 at their home track where they also took 1st at last year’s WERA Grand National Final 4-hour in October
of 2006. The team had two goals to achieve this weekend which, in addition to winning, was to get more
practice and fine-tune pit stop strategies for upcoming rounds of the Moto-ST Endurance Series (they are
currently running in 1st place in the points chase for the GST class championship).
Touring Sport Ducati’s grid position put them on the outside of row 13, were Pete Friedland took the racing
duties for the start. After the green flag dropped, Friedland was out in front of their class by lap #3 and
built up a 12-second lead before a crash brought out the red flag on lap #22. Once the track was cleared,
WERA officials announced the same grid positions which essentially erased any leads and brought the
running orders back to zero. The Touring Sport riders knew they had to put at least one lap between them
and the 2nd place team in order to protect their position. Over the course of the race there were a total of 6
red flags which forced them to push hard regardless of their running order. “It didn’t matter to me when I
red ‘P-1’ on the pit-board, because in addition to the time we gave back under red, most of the other teams
were running 6.5 gallon tanks, letting them run race distance with fewer fuel-stops than we did”, Friedland
said shortly after the race.
The bike’s 5-gallon fuel capacity would only last for an estimated 58 minutes at race-pace so the team
planned for 5 fuel stops with rider changes, and a possible “splash & go” if the race remained under green
for the entire 6 hours. Brad Phillips commented, “Once we ran thru the riding order once, we also completed
a front & rear tire change on the 3rd pit stop, which was important for us since we were able to use
the front wheel ‘quick-change’ setup Frank and I engineered. We could now change a front without removing
the brake calipers, saving us a bunch of time in the pit. This process we will need to have down
pat for the upcoming 8-hour Moto-ST finale at Daytona in October”.
Friedland pitted on lap #37 for fuel and Shockley took over for the second shift, turning the fastest lap
in-class of a 1:37.1 on lap #64. While Shockley was on track, he extended the team’s lead putting the
2nd place bike, #419 of Ghetto Customs, a full lap down. The safety margin they were looking for was
now in place and gave them a bit of breathing room.
The 2nd fuel stop and rider change happened on lap #72. Phillips climbed aboard, bumped the starter and
was out in less than 39 seconds, keeping the team’s lead over the #419 Suzuki of Ghetto Customs. Brad
came into the pits on lap 106. While fuel went in, crewmembers quickly changed the front & rear tires,
getting Friedland back on board and heading out on pit road in just over 2 minutes. With Touring Sport
leading by 1:22 on lap 133, another crash brought out the fifth red flag and racing action finally came to
a halt with 20 minutes left on the clock due to a burning motorcycle in the Turn One area.
At the podium, Frank Shockley commented, “It’s a great feeling to be up here and I’m extremely
pleased with how the team has come together and operated as a well-oiled machine and the durability of
our Ducati have been key for us as well. Special thanks to Mark Sutton and Chris Dodd who came here
today to help us during the race and Mark’s expertise with preparing our engines”.
A Special Thank-You to the Touring Sport Ducati Racing Sponsors:
Touring Sport Ducati
Duc Shop Performance Center
Robby Byrd
USDesmo
Swatt Motorcycle Products
JVE Limited
Pirelli Tires
EZGlide350 Synthetic Ice
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