Nate Kerns and Richard Cooper

Photo by Brian Cleary and Victor Newman Photography

Nate Kern gives a brief overview of this very successful weekend: "Cooper and I raced in ASRA Pro Thunderbike on our No. 12 and No. 347 BMW R 1200 S racing bikes, in both the national and regional events. We had a tremendous showing. The national ASRA Pro Thunderbike is a hotly contested class that includes very eager teams with big budgets. But I am very excited to say that I finished 1st in both and Cooper finished 2nd in the national, and 3rd in the regional."

Kern and Cooper also had a podium finish in the Daytona 300 MOTO-ST endurance races on Sunday, March 2, in a very dramatic race that Kern calls a "Cinderella story." A Cinderella story, because Kern and Cooper finished 3rd overall in the MOTO-ST, racing on a very stock No. 4 BMW R 1200 S, back up bike, which is essentially a street motorcycle. Unfortunately a day earlier Kern's No. 12 race bike was destroyed in a mishap by the German racer for BMW Motorrad Motorsport team, Thomas Hintereiter, during a practice session. Hintereiter, suffered a broken wrist and unfortunately won't be racing in the Saturday's AMA Formula Xtreme races.

Nate Kern and Richard Cooper on No. 4 R 1200 S made a late charge to take a third-place overall finish on basically a street bike. "I'm still speechless," Nate Kern said. "From our third rider getting hurt, from our top MOTO-ST bike getting absolutely destroyed. I brought my street bike to instruct at Team Hammer. Man, it's bone stock. It even has ABS and heated grips. We were 12 seconds down with eight laps to go, Richard Cooper made up the 12 seconds in just eight laps."

Photo by Brian Cleary and Victor Newman Photography

Kern's teammate Cooper grabbed third on the BMW in the waning laps when the No. 6 Aprilia USA/Lloyd Brothers Motorsports Aprilia 1000R ridden by Henry Wiles ran into fuel trouble. "As soon as I had Wiles in my sights, that was it," Cooper said. "I think I could have caught him anyway. The bike was faultless."

BMW Motorrad USA and BMW XPLOR congratulate Nate Kern, of BMW Motorcycles of Atlanta and Richard Cooper of Morton's BMW on a terrific opening weekend for this year's Daytona Bike Week and Daytona 200. We also wish a speedy recovery to Thomas Hintereiter.

Photo by Brian Cleary and Victor Newman Photography

For more information about ASRA/CCS or MOTO-ST races please visit www.ccsracing.us or www.moto-st.com. (For more photography for these races, contact Shahram Shiva at shahram.shiva@bmwna.com. All photos credit Brian Cleary and Victor Newman Photography.)