PARTS CANADA SUPERBIKE

Z1 Yamaha Tests Down South

	Zaid Saleemi and rider Andrew Nelson on the Z1 Yamaha R1 at Roebling Road in Savannah.

21/03/06 ROEBLING ROAD — Parts Canada Superbike rider Andrew Nelson and the Z1 Yamaha Race Team got their 2006 season underway with a test session held last weekend during the WERA south east regional race round at Roebling Road Raceway in Savannah, Georgia.

Nelson had spent the previous week vacationing in Daytona and helping out fellow Canadian racer Bill Card in the Daytona 200 race, and only met up with the Z1 Yamaha team on Friday to begin testing. The team originally had planned to bring both the Yamaha R1 and R6 to the test. But while waiting on a few key parts to arrive, they decided to focus on getting the R1 Superbike dialed in and to test the different compounds of Pirelli slicks available.

On Friday, Nelson got re-aquainted with the track and up to speed fairly quickly. The schedule for Saturday afternoon had a few extended 20-lap races, the first of which was the Expert Heavyweight Solo 20, with Nelson's Yamaha R1 superbike gridded on the 2nd row. In that race Nelson soon worked his way into the lead, but unfortunately got the meatball flag for a jump start and was given a stop-and-go penalty in pit lane, After re-entering the race in 5th, Nelson worked his way back up to finish 2nd on the podium.

Sunday had a busy schedule with two practice sessions in the morning and three more races in the afternoon. In the Formula 1 Expert, Nelson took an early lead with local fast guy Brian Gibbs keeping up the pressure for the entire race. Towards the end of the race, lapped riders in the Expert/Novice combined-race played into Nelson’s favour and he gapped Gibbs to take the win.

In the "A" Superbike Expert race, Andrew checked out right from the start to gap the field and easily take the win. Immediately after there was barely time for a quick tire swap to Pirelli DOTs before the Superstock Expert race started 10 minutes later.

In that final race pf the weekend Nelson was gridded on row five. It being his first time trying out the R1 on a set of DOT tires, he decided not to push too hard and gradually worked his way up to 3rd while the leader, David Brown, checked out with the lead on his GSX-R750 to win the race.

The weekend turned out very well. The weather was great and the team got in some valuable testing. Andrew is really looking forward to jumping on the new Yamaha R6!

— John Brundl