Twenty-year-old Tyler Scott, a regular contender in previous Daytona 200 events, earned pole position form the early afternoon Time Attack session at the famous banked north Florida Speedway. Aboard a newly D30 sponsored M4 Ecstar Suzuki GSX-R750, Scott set the pace in warm and windy conditions that were not considered to be ideal for ultimate lap times.
In 2025, Scott also started from pole position for MotoAmerica’s season opening Daytona 200, his best lap a year ago a 1:48.13. He wound up third overall.
This year, Scott turned a best lap of 1:48.908, holding off the Rahal Ducati of P.J. Jacobson. Reigning Champ Josh Herrin made up for a rough start to his 84th running of Motorcycle Speed Week, earning third with a tour of 1:49.45.
Crowd favorite Herrin is aiming win his fourth consecutive Daytona 200 and fifth career success starting at 1:10pm tomorrow, Saturday, March 7. If he were to succeed, he would equal the efforts of Daytona Superbike class legends of American Scott Russell and French-Canadian Miguel Duhamel.
The front grid for tomorrow’s 57 lap, 200 mile, three pit stop and tire change festival will be completed by Darryn Binder, the south African former World Championship racer making his debut at the Speedway with a strong lap of 1:49.59.
In the morning practice sessions, legendary British racer Peter Hickman fell at high-speed coming down from the banking, breaking into turn one. Hickman barely cleared Medical in time to join his team in Pit Lane for Time Attack. Then Hickman fell at the start of his first hot lap, this time exiting turn one. This stopped the already brief session. Time Attack eventually relaunched for just three minutes to finalize the front of the grid.
In his Daytona debut last year, Hickman impressed with a solid fourth place finish.
Yesterday, Hickman’s PHR Performance Triumph squad’s equally famous team-mate, fellow famous U.K. open road competitor Davey Todd, suffered a big fall in the infield and was transported to hospital. Todd had surgery on a fractured leg in a local hospital earlier this morning and will be out of action for at least a few weeks.
M4 Ecstar Mission Foods racer Richie Escalante has been a front runner (second last year) in recent Daytona 200s and will start from pole on row two with a lap at 1:49.82. Sixth on the grid belongs to class rookie Alessandro Di Mario (1:49.82), the last rider to break into the 1:49 second bracket.
Six of the top nine bikes at the front of the banked Speedway’s grid are Ducati 955 Panigales, including four from the Rahal Squad (Jacobson, Herrin, Di Mario, top female Kayla Yaakov in a solid eighth). The remaining two Desmo vee-twins come from the squad that took Herrin to his most recent successes, the Celtic, Economy Lube and Tire (Ontario-based auto service provider) and Warhorse backed entries of Binder and young team-mate Wristin Grigg.
The sole Canadian entered in the 200 is Guelph’s Dylan Bauer on his Goat Shop-backed Yamaha YZF-R6 in-line four cylinder. Bauer worked on set-up in his sole morning session, winding up seventh in his group with a best lap of 1:55.6.
This effort was just short of the lap of 1:55.05 he set yesterday, at the time the 29th best tour from the 48 competitors who set a lap time. Last year, Bauer made it to the finish in a strong Daytona debut, winding up 16th overall.
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