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Championships, Wins, and Records
for Teasley, Kawasaki and Adams Performance
Adams
Performance jockey Jeremy Teasley took his second straight BST Real
Street championship with a win at the AMA Dragbike National Finals at
South Georgia Motorsports Park near Valdosta, Georgia. Teasley beat
team boss Coby Adams in the final round—the second straight time the
two and their Adams Performance prepped Kawasaki ZX14s have squared off
for the win. Teasley also runner-upped to Kawasaki superstar Rickey
Gadson in Dragbike.com Supersport by the slimmest .0001 margin
possible—another all-ZX14 final round. And to cap off the dynamite
weekend for the Adams squad, Gadson’s riding and the team’s tuning
brought the ZX14 Pro Street bike up to number 3 qualifying competitive
pace.
“The weekend turned out pretty good,” said Adams, who was relieved to
win the Real Street crown and thrilled by the Pro Street bike’s
performance. “We’ve definitely got our Pro Street bike together and
running good. It probably could’ve made a lot more rounds but we had
(race winner) Victor Gotay in the second round and he was on a mission.
Our bike didn’t 60 foot like it was supposed to that pass, and it
probably would’ve been a different outcome if it had. With a run of
7.25 at over 206 mph, and lots of room to grow, the bike showed that
the Kawasaki ZX14 is on a path to a championship next year."
“The Pro Street bike finally came around, which we knew it was going to
after Rockingham,” said crew chief Garron Miller, who’s taken on extra
tuning duties with Adams piloting Roger Starrette’s Real Street ZX14
these last few races. The week before Valdosta, Rickey’s nephew Richard
Gadson rode the Pro Street bike to a very racy third place qualifying
spot at The Rock. “Next year we won’t be spending the whole year trying
to figure everything out with that bike now that Coby’s got a good
handle on it.”
The all-ZX14 Supersport final between Jeremy and Rickey was classic,
with Gadson earning the winning margin at the tree. Teasley’s
Muzzy-equipped, Adams Performance power came within a hair’s breadth of
driving around for the double-up win.
But Teasley’s big success came in Real Street, where his second
straight championship earned him—according to the rulebook—a ban from
future competition in the class! The rule was originally intended to
keep factory-supported pro riders from dominating the class with money,
but that’s not an issue with independent teenager Teasley. “I’m a
little sad that Jeremy doesn’t get to come back in Real Street next
year,” said Miller. “For some stupid reason, they’re forcing him out of
the class and he can’t go anywhere but Pro Street, which is forcing
somebody to build a $60-70,000 bike with the economy the way it is. How
do you tell an 18 year-old kid just graduating from high school that he
is better than everyone else in the class and you kick him out? I
haven't heard one racer from the AMA series say that this is a good
rule. Everyone says it needs to be removed except for the staff at AMA,
and they seem to be split on the decision. Let's do the right thing and
let the boy race!”
"JT rode his way out of a Real Street ride next year in AMA,” agreed
Adams. “They love Jeremy over in the MiRock series, so we can still
compete in Real Street over there. And we’d love to build another Pro
Street bike for any sponsor that wants to hitch on to Jeremy’s
bandwagon. There’s no doubt that the kid is going places.”
But for the time being, Teasley and the team will enjoy this
championship. “This one was a little more challenging than last
year’s,” said Jeremy, who struggled with a late season fuel pump
problem that made it a close points race with two time MiRock series
champ Keith Thompson. Teasley’s semifinal win over Thompson was his
closest of the day in the class, and secured the title. “The bike ran
great all weekend, and I’ve gotta give credit to Garron.”
“The bike was just makin’ passes,” said Miller, who kept it
conservative until the championship was secure. “We played it safe all
weekend. 8.0s were definitely gonna win. But we added a little bit to
the end when we already had the championship locked up, and we turned
the nitrous up just a little bit.”
That was for the final against Adams, and Coby gave the kid a good
race. “I think I treed him again,” said Adams, and over Coby’s
shoulder, Teasley was listening and nodded in embarrassed agreement.
“He gave me the break, then set a record against me,” laughed Adams,
who went to three finals in three events on Starrette’s bike—not bad
for a roundy-rounder out of practice on the dragstrip. The 7.93 Jeremy
ran while driving around the boss established the new AMA Dragbike
record for the class.
“We tried for an .80 or something, but a .93 is good,” said Miller. “We
got the ET record back from Chip Ellis, who was phenomenal again this
weekend just like always.”
“The Real Street championship meant a lot to us,” finished Adams. “We
haven’t had a championship in a couple of years, so we needed to give
something back to Kawasaki for all their support.”
Adams, Teasley and Gadson would like to thank
Adamsperformance.net
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