Daytona Bike Week set for takeoff
DAYTONA BEACH — The official start to Daytona International Speedway’s Bike Week is Friday when the track opens its popular Midway area in front of the stadium on International Speedway Boulevard.
From there, it is full speed ahead with a nearly nonstop racing program beginning with Saturday night’s Daytona Monster Energy AMA Supercross, featuring the 450SX class along with up-and-coming stars of 250SX.
There is really only one break in the racing schedule from Saturday’s Supercross to March 18, when the Championship Cup Series finishes its road-racing program.
Once the Supercross pros are done with the course, designed for the 11th consecutive year by Ricky Carmichael, amateur riders from across the land will use the track for three days.
The Daytona Carmichael Amateur will be staged Sunday and Monday followed by the fourth annual FLY Racing ATV Supercross.
The course will be knocked down a bit for the amateur racers.
“There is no easy part to the course,” Carmichael said. “I don’t want it to be dangerous, but I wanted it to have more jumps and be more challenging.”
There is no racing Wednesday as Daytona’s operations crews hustle to clear away the Supercross and create the Daytona TT course, which will host a one-night, American Flat Track program on Thursday, March 15.
The AFT track was actually constructed under the Supercross course, still taking shape on the Daytona “football field” or the grassy area in the tri-oval.
Daytona Bike Week concludes with three consecutive days of road racing over the Speedway’s 3.51-mile long course.
The 77th running of the Daytona 200 is scheduled for 57 laps over the road course on Saturday, March 17.
All eyes will be on Danny Eslick, who has won the Daytona 200 three times since the 2014 season. He had to sit out the 2016 race after a run-in with police.
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Daytona Bike Week Schedule
The total purse has been set at $175,000 and the race winner will be awarded a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona time piece.
The Daytona Bike Week program concludes March 18 with a day of Championship Cup Series sprint races.
For more information, call the Speedway at 800-748-7467 or go online to daytonainternationalspeedway.com.
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