Mickey Thompson Performance Tires MiRock Superbike Series
event: Fast by Gast WPGC Bike Fest
when: July 17-18, 2010
where: Maryland International Raceway in Budd’s Creek, MD, USA
Homecoming Win for Procopio
story and photos by Tim Hailey
Ronnie Procopio
Pro Comp eighth mile racing for nitrous Pro Mods, turbo Funnybikes and Outlaw Pro Street bikes made its MIRock debut, and Maryland native Ronnie Procopio took all the spoils. Procopio qualified number 1 on his nitrous Pro Mod Suzuki and met up with Canadian Terry Schweigert on a similar combination in the final. Schweigert failed to make the long trip pay off, cutting a poor light, backsliding slightly on ET, and handing Procopio the homecoming win. “I love bein’ here,” said Ronnie. “This is my home track. I do my best work here!”
True enough. Procopio had a broke bye first round courtesy of Danny DeLeon and his turbo bike. An easy dispatch of Frank Christian in round 2 was followed by Ronnie’s closest race of the day, against Paul Gast. “He treed me pretty well, but he’s been having problems with his bike lately.” And thusly gave up the ground gained.
Then came the match-up with number 2 qualifier Schweigert. “My light wasn’t that great, it was only a .070, but his was like .2something,” said Ronnie. “When I left, he didn’t come with me. I thought he must’ve broke and been staging to fool me. He ran a .27, which is pretty good, but I expected more from them. I know he was set for kill.”
Terry Schweigert
“We were really struggling,” said dairy farmer Schweigert. “We were having trouble with the bike and couldn’t get it to run in the teens.” And teens are what Schweigert and builder/tuner Dan Wagner are used to as the weekly runner-ups to Fast By Gast’s Ashley Owens on this year’s ADRL circuit.
And the ADRL is where Procopio’s been hanging. “I’m pretty much just following that circuit, but MIR is talking with Rockingham to try and get this series to continue (with this class),” said Ronnie. “If it becomes an eight race series I’d love to follow this circuit. This is where I started, this is where my heart is. Then maybe I can get my wife (Robin) another bike and get her back in.”
Ronnie’s bike is a brand new chassis built by Joe Cagnina of Bikes By Joe out of the old C&W Cycleworks shop. “He just built the chassis, I just put it together, it’s pretty much the first race to work the kinks out and she’s runnin’ good,” said Procopio. “Dan Wagner’s still doing my motors, but I’m tuning myself now and it was fun to have him in the finals. He’s like my master, I’m his student. It was a great win for me today.
“I definitely wanna thank Dan for a great motor, Joe for a great chassis, my helpers Mike and Josh, and always my wife Robin. I can’t race without her. And my kids Ronnie and Peyton.”