Buffalo, NY: Braving conditions at a rain-soaked Road Atlanta this past Sunday, Brad Burns and Billy Ethridge took first and second respectively on Dunlop tires in the WERA Triple Crown +1 Presented by Honda.
While all of the Sunday road races were run on a wet track, the WERA Triple Crown +1 riders had to compete in a deluge. Despite the conditions, Burns and Ethridge made big waves on their Dunlop KR189 front and KR404 rear tires.
The WERA Triple Crown +1 race was originally scheduled for 11-laps but was red-flagged after three. When the rain eased up, the race was restarted as an eight-lap race, with the riders gridding in their original positions.
After leaving the competition in his wake, Burns said, “At Road Atlanta, it’s pretty exciting going down the back straight at about 160 in the rain, trying to avoid the paint lines and puddles while braking hard for turn ten. When it was raining really hard before the race was stopped, we were running at a pace about 30-seconds slower than my dry times. In the end we were running at about 10-seconds off our dry-track pace. I’m used to the Dunlops and knew I’d have the best tires through to the end.”
Second place finisher, 48-year-old defending Triple Crown champion Ethridge, said, “During the first start it seemed like the water was over a foot deep at the bottom of the hill before the Esses, and there was a river coming down the hill after turn one. So I took the first few laps of the restart easy to sort out the best lines. There’s a lot of grip with the Dunlop rain tires in the wet, but the speed is so fast it really gets your attention.”
Development Manager for Dunlop Motorcycle Tires in North America, Mick Jackson, said; “All of us at Dunlop congratulate Brad and Billy for their efforts. We saw great performances out of these riders despite the conditions and are excited to see the continued competition in this series.”
The Dunlop tires used by WERA riders are available to all other club racers are the same tires used by pro racers in the MotoAmerica series, where Dunlop is the official tire supplier.
