Highlands team wins Streetbike Shootout

By LEWIS SPEARMAN

BAYTOWN – The Second Round of the Texas Shootout was filled with exciting thrills and a major spill at Houston Raceway Park on April 26.

Local dragster bike riders, Jeff Peck and Gilbert Coronado, won (in that order) the Streetbike Shootout of the Second Round of Texas Shootout.

Team Highlands Kawasaki’s, Jeff Peck was number one qualifier on a ZRX 1200 Turbo and Coronado qualified third on the same type of bike.

Team Highlands Kawasaki’s Roberts Sanders hit the wall during the Super Comp class at 166 m.p.h. but left the ambulance only one hour later. The motorcycle he was riding came to rest over 150 feet from where his body stopped. The impact was so hard it knocked the face mask off his helmet, seared road debris into his skin but he walked up to the Team Manager less than two hours later.

After the scuffed up but tough rider had a conference with Manger Keith Coble, Coble winked, “That says a lot for the leathers, gloves and helmets we have the riders wear doesn’t it.”

Super Comp winner was Kirk Reeves followed closely by Sterling Tausch.

In the 60″ Sportbike Shootout David Gebhardt was the declared winner. Team Highlands Kawasaki’s Bryan Dunham, winner of Round One of Streetbike Shootout, was disqualified this time because he didn’t have his headlights turned on during burn-off phase of racing. He did have them on for the race but that disqualification and another Team Highlands Kawasaki disqualification for being 1/8 inch too long left no runner up.

Top Gas winners were Lonnie Crane followed by Robert McMahan. Super Gas was taken by O’Shea Squalls followed by Bruce Calhoun. Pro ET went to Craig Treble and Chris Lebouef. Street ET winners were Jimmy Crites with Steve Read runner up.
Coble was obviously disappointed with the 60 inch bike results for his team, “Outfront, I have to say I’m very gratified with Jeff and Bryan’s good outing. I have to say that an eighth of an inch isn’t going to out run us. We are at the point that we have our bikes working so that they have to bring their lawyers to the track to beat us but they are not going to out run us. I was surprised to find that our run time qualified, we discovered Jeff’s bike had a waist gasket broken, but he won anyway.”

Top Eliminator was taken by C.D. Watson. Dennis Shaw was second. In Pro-Gas Harley, John Peek was the winner. Keith Poston was in second place.