Nate Kerns and Richard Cooper
Photo by Brian Cleary and Victor Newman Photography
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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."
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."
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