(NEWS RELEASE)

M4 Broaster Chicken Suzuki’s Dane Westby demonstrated promising form on the opening day of the 2012 AMA Pro Road Racing season on Thursday at Daytona International Speedway as he prepared for Saturday’s assault on the historic Daytona 200. The Daytona SportBike title contender ran in the top five in the morning practice with a fast time of 1:52.740 aboard his GSX-R600 and then proceeded to lower his time by a full second in the second session (1:51.662) to end the day ranked sixth overall.

Westby was in a positive mood at the conclusion of the day, saying he’s in even better shape his results suggest.

“Today went really well,” said Westby after concentrating on long runs and consistent lap times. “Everything is lining up for me. I feel really good about things, both here at Daytona and the season in general. The times don’t show in practice but the race is a different ball game. I’m not so worried about the time. We’re looking forward to the race and 200 miles.”

SuzukiScoopFans Sportbike TrackGear.com M4 Suzuki’s Elena Myers was also significantly more competitive than the final times appear to show.

Provisional AMA Pro SuperSport qualifying results list the teenager in 11th position at 1:55.047, but Myers actually clocked the session’s third fastest time only to see it disallowed as a red flag brought the session to a close seconds before she officially completed her hot lap.

Chris Ulrich put the M4 Broaster Chicken Suzuki GSX-R1000 16th fastest at 1:41.746, running similar times to a tightly-packed group of riders in the stacked field. Ulrich admits he’s still getting back in the groove but happy to be back on track following his injury-marred 2011 season.

“It’s good to be back in the paddock and back on the track after last year,” Ulrich said. “I’m thankful to be back out there. The first day at Daytona has its challenges and we’re just working through everything. We haven’t tested much and we’re still a little rusty after last year, but we’re close. We figured something out right at the end of practice. I’m not going to say I’m happy to be 16th but I’m not going to say everything is lost either. We’ll work on it and continue working in the right direction tomorrow.”

On Friday, Westby will make a bid for the Rolex awarded for winning the pole for the Daytona 200 while Ulrich and Myers will claim their final grid positions and compete in the Superbike and SuperSport season opening races.